


All The World's A Stage

by Brewsterion1017



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro Has A Palace, Akechi gets to break shit and enjoys it, F/M, Gen, Mild P5R Spoilers, Post P5R
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26039686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brewsterion1017/pseuds/Brewsterion1017
Summary: The Thieves are just having a nice little reunion in Tokyo, absolutely no business planned, until an old friend--sort of--shows up asking for some help. And just like that, they're back on the grind, saving Akechi from almost himself.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Yoshizawa Sumire | Yoshizawa Kasumi
Kudos: 18





	All The World's A Stage

#### Part 1: Guess Who's Back?

The reunion at Leblanc was going well when the door opened and a Sojiro’s voice echoed up the stairs. 

“You guys? I think a friend of yours is here.” 

Ren turned and looked at the others, who all stared back. Zenkichi hadn’t been able to make it since he was so busy following up all the cases they’d dealt with in the summer, which had to have been considerable if he was still occupied in November, but everybody else was present including Sumire. 

“Did you guys go and get a new friend while I was gone? You didn’t mention that in the texts.” Ren chuckled. 

“Nah, we’ve just been hanging out with each other,” Ryuji replied. “Mishima’s been in Kyoto for the last month, and he’s not supposed to get back for another two weeks, so it can’t possibly be him.” 

“And to think I was hoping we could just get back together without something weird happening,” Makoto said, dejectedly. 

Ren scoffed, but she had a point. They hadn’t met up since their attempt at a summer road trip, which ended up with them back on the job at the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Granted, they had more fun messing around in the Metaverse than anywhere else, but it would have been nice. It was already November, and they just wanted to welcome Ren back to Tokyo before he made the decision on if to attend college there with most of the others. 

“Maybe Doctor Maruki wanted to drop by and wish him well? Somebody probably mentioned it in passing at Shujin.” Sumire was a bit distracted, as she had dug out her old Winchester from somewhere in the room and was attempting to polish it off as she spoke. 

“No, that wouldn’t make much sense.” “No, she’s got a point,” Ann cut Makoto off. “He did have a change of heart, after all. It would make sense if he dropped by.” 

“Shouldn’t we just go and see?” Haru chimed in. Murmurs of assent came from everybody there, and Ruyji lightly whacked Yusuke on the back of his head as the others began moving towards the stairs. Futaba led the way, with Ren at the back. 

“Sojiro, you know next time you can just--oh fuck you!” She flipped two birds from the turn in the stairs and began heading back up. 

“Wait, wait, who is it?” “Oh just go and see!” Sumire literally leapt forwards and down the stairs, but was silent as she stared at the entrance to Leblanc. All the others began pushing forwards down as well, and everybody had a similar reaction. 

“Oh fuck you, asshole!”  
“You little shit!”  
“What? How could this be?”  
“Wha-how are you here?”  
“You murderer shitbag!” 

Ren hopped the railing above the stairs and landed on the edge of the landing, right next to Sumire and in front of everybody else. He turned to look at the entrance, and a very faint smile crossed his face as he did. 

“Good to see you all again too,” Akechi replied from the doorway. His former signature detective coat was slung over his shoulder, and he still had the same scarf he’d had all the way back in the third semester. His briefcase was gone and replaced with a small messenger bag, with the old A symbol replaced with an image of a raven.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Ryuji yelled. “Shouldn’t you be dead anyway?” 

Akechi chuckled and hung his coat on the rack, looping his scarf over it. “Thankfully, we all seemed wrong about that part. It turns out that my surviving Shido’s palace was not caused by Maruki, merely my ending up in the right place to turn myself in in place of Ren. Thank you for keeping your promise, by the way.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Ren replied. “You want some coffee?” 

“I would, actually.” Akechi moved to take a seat at the counter, and Ren slid behind it. “Sorry about the noise, Boss, I’ve got it.” Sojiro just raised his hands and walked into the back, chuckling to himself. Ren began digging up enough coffee cups for everybody, including Akechi, while Morgana walked in the door and did a double take. 

“How did he get here?” “I’m as confused as you,” Ann said as she slowly descended from the landing down to the main cafe. Haru was trying to drag Futaba back down the stairs, as was Yusuke with Ryuji, and Sumire with Makoto. Ren was finished with coffees for everybody excepting Morgana by the time the others had all taken seats in booths and on the counter. 

“So, why are you here?” Ren calmly asked from behind the counter. Akechi took a sip of coffee, sighed in satisfaction, and turned to face the others. 

“Well, as I said, it appears that I did in fact survive Shido’s palace after all. I’ve spent the last several months keeping tabs on Ren, both out of personal interest and as something to occupy myself as I continue my work with the police’s new Cognitive Division. I won’t bother explaining that part to you, you can go read it, but I have found something interesting.” He leaned forwards and removed a small notebook from his bag. 

“As I’m sure you all saw back in summer, the Metaverse is still very much existent. Just because we wiped out Mementos doesn’t mean the entire Metaverse falls apart. I didn’t see exactly what you _did_ over the summer, only felt the ripples through the Metaverse and from the changes in people’s behavior.” 

“You’ve been back in the Metaverse?” Futaba asked. 

“Yes, albeit not in any combat capacity.” He reached into his bag again and removed a small pill bottle, about half-empty. “The real main reason I was keeping tabs on all this at once, besides what I just said, is that the police found out about my ‘condition’ in a psychiatric exam. As it turns out, I have clinical psychosis. I don’t know if it stemmed from our fight in Shido’s palace, but I would assume that it has some deep-seated reason that was either caused by or caused Loki’s powers before he fused into Hereward. In any case, here is the issue.” 

He took another sip of coffee before continuing.

“My medication, while I am appreciating my newfound, legitimate calmness more than I anticipated, appears to have altered my cognition somehow. Whereas before I was able to go into any real-world building’s Metaverse equivalent, now when I enter, I continually find myself in...a theater, I think. It is the only place I ever find myself in. And to make matters worse, whenever I try to summon my Persona, I face issues similar to what Yoshizawa went through in Maruki’s palace.” He nodded at Sumire, who nodded back. “It’s surprisingly good to see you again, Goro.” 

“Likewise,” he replied. “But to conclude…” he drew in a somewhat shaky breath and looked down at the floor shamefully. “I think I may have developed a palace of a nature similar to Kaneshiro’s, where the distortion encompasses an extraordinary large area, and I came to ask for your assistance in removing it.” 

There was silence in the cafe for a few moments before Yusuke spoke up. “If you say the police now have a Cognitive Division, why not ask their help? Surely they would be better suited for combat in what would likely be a dangerous environment than us.” “Yeah, why do you need us to do this?” Ryuji added. 

“While my Palace would likely be very dangerous going off of prior experiences with the scale of how mentally unstable a person is, I simply do not trust the police for this,” Akechi conceded. “I do not desire to have some overwhelming change of heart or go and confess my actions, medication and therapy have already repaired most of the damage done to my psyche. I want this Palace removed from my mind so I can return to keeping tabs on the Metaverse without interruptions, and I thought that you all were the best suited for it.” 

Morgana hopped up onto the seat next to Akechi, staring at him. “Why are you keeping tabs on the Metaverse anyway? Why would you even care about it?” 

“Yeah, what do you get from digging around in there? A few extra levels? A cheat code?” Futaba joined in. 

“Guys, leave him alone. Since the Metaverse is still active, it would make sense to keep an eye on it. Last time we stopped paying attention to it Maruki went and rewrote reality.” Ren tilted his head at the group and turned to Akechi. “But why were you following me?” 

“As I said, the Cognitive Division wanted tabs kept on you since you were the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Once I was temporarily removed due to my psychosis diagnosis, it was more out of trying to see if you had gone and done anything noteworthy recently.” Akechi opened the notebook to a page that looked like a bunch of scratched-out Meta-Nav inputs. “If you would like to get an idea of what you’re getting into, I’ve been trying to establish just what this Palace is, if it is one and it is mine, and these are what I’ve tried in the Nav. Unless, of course, you do not wish to do this.” 

“Well, I think we should hear everybody’s positions on the matter first,” Makoto said as she looked towards Ren. “You first?” 

“Sure,” Ren replied. “My vote is for helping him. The incident in January proved that he wouldn’t have any more reason to hurt us, and if he did he would have done so already. And everything he said makes logical sense.” 

“Why are you nice towards this guy?” Ryuji shouted, standing up from his seat and gesturing wildly at Akechi. “Even after that whole mess with Maruki, he still tried to kill us earlier! He was acting absolutely nuts that whole time too!” “I am getting treatment for that.” “Shut up!” 

“Ryuji does have a point,” Yusuke chimed in. “While it is true he worked with us in Maruki’s palace, that does not excuse everything he went and did before that. While I am willing to believe that medication to be legitimate, we have all seen your skill with presenting a false identity to the world.” The other Phantom Thieves offered similar opinions, with the exception of Sumire who explained that she only didn’t speak because she “didn’t fully understand what he did in Sae’s palace.” 

Akechi stood up, placing everything back into his bag. “Well, I understand your issues. My apologies for bothering you all, and thank you for the coffee. He was about to stand up when Ren grabbed his shoulder. “Give me a moment,” he said as he took out his phone and pressed the blue butterfly icon, bringing it up to his ear as a gentle piano ringtone played. A few seconds passed, and a gentle click cut off the music as a woman’s voice came through the other end. 

“Hello, Trickster. What do you require today?” 

“Who is this? You’re not Lavenza.” 

“My apologies, Trickster.” A gentle, elderly man’s voice with a hint of firmness came through as well. “This is Margaret, a former assistant who has come to rejoin me. I can introduce you tonight, if you wish.” 

“That is actually what I wanted to discuss, sort of. Remember Yaldabaoth’s champion? Goro Akechi? He believes he may have developed a Palace.” 

“And you are of course naturally suspicious due to his past behavior and betrayal of you. What would you like to use the Velvet Room for?” 

“I would like to...this actually sounds like a bad idea now that I say it out loud...I would like to bring him to the Velvet Room and see if he actually does one, as well as if he does actually have the...whatever you called it.” 

“The Wild Card, yes. Of course, we can arrange that. Bring him to the entrance where you met my assistants while I was absent, and use your key to enter. We shall continue from there.” 

“Understood. See you tomorrow.” Ren hung up and turned back towards the others, who were all staring at him intently. 

“Alright, we’ve got a plan. Akechi, meet me by Untouchable in Shibuya tomorrow. We’ll confirm if you’re telling the truth or not, and we can work from there.” 

“Well, in that case, I will see you tomorrow.” Akechi grabbed his coat and scarf from off the hook, putting them both on and turning to face everybody in the cafe. “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this. It was good to see you all again, legitimately. Thank you for the coffee.” He went back out the door, leaving the cafe silent except for the ding of the doorbell. 

It was several minutes before somebody spoke again, with Ryuji making an awful joke. The rest of the day continued as the morning had, with the Phantom Thieves having fun with each other and messing around, the encounter with Akechi lingering in the back of their heads. Everybody left the cafe, and Ren crashed on Sojiro’s couch since everybody agreed the attic of Leblanc simply wasn’t good enough at this point. There wasn’t really anything eventful until the next day, over in Shibuya. Ren was leaned upon against the entrance to an alley when Akechi came around the corner, in the same outfit as the previous day.

“So what did you want me to be here for?” Akechi asked. 

“First, let me spell something out.” Ren stood upright and squared up, his eyes just barely jutting over his glasses. “I was nice to you at Leblanc because I wanted to hear what you said. Do not mistake my niceness there for permanent niceness. I’m still pissed at you for trying to kill me, and all of us, and if I find out you are lying in the next few minutes I can guarantee you are not leaving Tokyo alive ever again. If you’re telling the truth, and really do need our help, then I would be glad to do it and we can begin putting everything behind us. But you’re not going to make up several murders and even more attempted ones that quickly.” 

Akechi nodded. “I understand, but I no longer wish you any ill will. I truly do wish to make amends. You want to go to the Jazz Jin later today?”

“Hell yeah. But my point still stands.” “You have made it clear. Now, how are you going to verify my claims?” 

Ren smirked, removed the Velvet Key from his pocket, and placed it in the air so its shadow perfectly intersected the keyhole in the shadow of a door that wasn’t there. A blue velvet-covered door suddenly manifested in the air, swinging open to reveal a swirling blue void within. Ren gestured towards the door with a dramatic flourish, and Akechi shrugged and stepped towards it. Ren suddenly spun around and kicked him directly in the butt, sending him stumbling into the door and almost tripping as he vanished into the void. 

“I get Caroline now,” he said as he stepped inside. 

Ren was taken a bit aback by the Velvet Room immediately upon entry. The Room no longer resembled a prison as it had done for the last year and a half, but rather a large, open lounge area, with several tables surrounded by couches all across the place. Several bookcases lined the walls, and each table had a small, closed cooler next to it. A piano and other instruments were propped up around a microphone in one corner, and some of the tables looked as though they were missing components that had not arrived yet. Igor’s desk sat at the head of the room, with the Persona Fusion Matrix in front of him. Lavenza sat at his side, but Ren could see two other attendants he’d never seen before on the far side of the room, a man in a bellhop outfit and a woman in a long dress holding a Compendium. Another person sat on the couch near them, a tall, gray-haired boy with a set of glasses poking out of his uniform jacket’s pocket. Ren was about to go over when Akechi cleared his throat. 

“I assume we head to long-nosed at the desk over there?” He said, gesturing towards Igor. Ren nodded, and the two walked over to face the Proprietor himself. 

“Hello there, Trickster. And to you as well, Warrior.” 

“I’m the Warrior?” Akechi asked. “Where did that name come from?” 

“Your existence is steeped in conflict and fighting, yet you continue on towards a purpose that you do not always know or see. We have not had a Warrior grace the Velvet Room for some time,” Lavenza said. 

“You’re famous over here too, huh,” Ren said as he faced Akechi, who simply shrugged. He turned back to Igor. “What’s with the makeover and the other kid over there?” 

“That would be the Investigator,” Igor replied. “He fought to save the world from an unnatural fog of stasis, similar to what you did but vastly different. As for the change in appearance...plans are rapidly changing. I will soon need to leave the room to escort another Wild Card along on their journey, and since you have all completed yours, this is the...destination, if you will. The true Velvet Room, not one in transit or on a path to something. But we can address that another time. Now is for your verification.” 

Lavenza stepped forwards, taking Akechi’s hand and examining it. With the same blank look on her face, she dropped his hand and snapped her fingers. In a flash of blue Ren was in his Joker outfit, but Akechi’s flickered between his Crow and Mask outfits before fading away, leaving him in normal clothes. She snapped her fingers again, returning Ren to normal, as she looked Akechi in the eyes. 

“You are unsure of yourself and who you are, causing your mind to latch onto the desire of being what others wish for you to be. You will not be able to make use of your abilities until this is resolved, but you will still be able to enter the other world. I am sorry to say, but it appears that you have indeed developed a Palace.”

Igor chuckled, prompting Akechi to flick his head up at him. “Do you think this is funny?” 

“Not at all, not at all. I merely find it interesting that you are now going through what Yaldabaoth put the Trickster through—a rehabilitation of sorts. Rest assured you will have my full support on this,” he said as he looked at Ren. 

Ren nodded. “Thank you. I’m sure I will be returning here frequently. Is Akechi welcome as well?” 

“But of course, but of course. He will need help if he is to truly master the power of the Wild Card, and we will always provide our services to those who require it.” Ren muttered a word of thanks and walked back towards the door, Akechi right behind him. The two of them emerged back in Shibuya, with Akechi starting at the sight of the newly floating door. 

“Ah, you can see that now.” “Is that what you used to create new Personas?” “How’d you guess?” “I thought I kept seeing you go into a door like that when...you know when. In any case. What do we do now?” 

“Now I’d think I-we? Bring it up to vote with the others. Like you saw, the Phantom Thieves only operate under a unanimous vote. Although there might actually be another way to see if you’re telling the truth…”

“Let me guess,” Akechi cut in. “You want to try and enter my Palace to see if I still consider you hostile by testing if your clothes change in there, but you also understand this could be strictly relegated to you and not the rest of the Phantom Thieves.” 

“No, I know how much you hate my guts,” Ren finished. “So I figured if you no longer considered me your most hated enemy, then you’d definitely be fine with the other Phantom Thieves. Besides, the scale of Shadows within a Palace is almost entirely divorced from the power of the Ruler, remember? If you tried to kill us somehow, it would backfire on you in several ways.” 

“You’d put me to sleep with your little Phantom Show, I know. I saw you tear Azathoth apart with that Persona. Rest assured I have no intention of killing you all, but I understand your hesitation. Would you like to do it right here?” Akechi took his phone out of his pocket, his thumb hovering over what looked like a low-res version of the Meta-Nav. 

“Wait, how _did_ you-” “Futaba never took the app off my phone back from when you tricked me. Since she reprogrammed the Meta-Nav, I was able to salvage some of the code off of it and reconstruct a functional version of the Nav from what was left over. I’m no programmer, so when I say functional, I mean it functions and does literally nothing else, and I can enter the Metaverse but the location tracking is barely operating. And for reference, I end up here whenever I enter the Metaverse. It’s not isolated to, say, the police station or anything. It is quite literally everywhere.” Akechi paused to take a breath. “So, shall we go?” 

“Didn’t bring my gear, but sure.” “I know how your little leg sheath works. Let’s just go.” Akechi pressed the button, and the world was engulfed in the familiar red and black distortion. It took a moment to fade, but when it did, both of them were still in their normal clothes, standing in a massive, ornate lobby. 

“It does look like a theater lobby,” Ren commented. “How many times did you say you’d been here?” 

“Three,” he replied, “Every time I’ve arrived in a different part of the lobby. While it does seem massive, I haven’t yet been able to pinpoint where the real-world equivalent of the stage is. I put that part off until you got here.” 

“Gotcha,” Ren said as he nodded. “There’s one other test I wanted to run, though. Yo Ryuji!” 

Ryuji jumped out from around the corner, purple hoodie flying through the air as he did a running leap off of a table and skidded on his knees to stop in front of the two. “How’d I look dude?” 

“Absolutely sick.” “For real? Hell yeah!” 

Akechi chuckled. “I probably should have seen that coming. Good call, though. As you can see, he’s not an enemy. Is that sufficient proof for you.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, dude, I still don’t entirely trust you,” Ryuji said as he leaned against a pillar. “But if you’ve got a Palace, well, one way or another, that’s bad. And that’s where we gotta step in.” 

“May I ask a question, Sakamoto, Ren?” “Yeah sure.” “Go right ahead.” 

Akechi cleared his throat. “Back when you first started the Phantom Thieves, you claimed to have been doing things out of justice. Now that you’re here, and have encountered all of this, do you think you’re still doing it for some sort of justice, or as a way to improve society and help people...rebel against themselves, in a sense?” 

“Heh, I’m not entirely the guy to ask about that,” Ryuji said, “but I kinda think it’s both. Sometimes you need to do both, and a Palace in any sense requires at least one of them. If there is a Palace, then it’s a problem that we’re the only ones that can solve.” 

“He put it better than I could,” Ren said. “If there’s a Palace, it means that something needs to change. And life will change, if you hold on or not.” 

“That is...in- _credibly_ profound and idealistic. You really haven’t changed since Shido’s Palace, have you?” 

“Why change me?” Ren cracked a smile of somebody who knew just how good they were, looking Akechi right in the eyes. Ryuji slugged him in the arm, and Akechi shook his head. 

“No you haven’t. Getting back to the main matter at hand, is this the part where we go and pitch a vote to the others? Or do we do reconnaissance now? I was only here for Sae and Maruki’s Palace, both of which were highly unusual cases.” 

“I think this is where we host a vote.” 

Ninety minutes later, the Phantom Thieves were huddled around the table in Leblanc’s attic, with Akechi waiting downstairs. His notebook was open on the table, and a short recap of everything that had happened in Maruki’s Palace written out by Ren and Sumire was next to it. 

“You all heard Akechi’s proposal yesterday,” Ren said. “I’ve verified the existence of a Palace caused by a ‘desire of being what others wish for you to be’, so it’s caused by an actual issue, and Ryuji helped verify that he doesn’t consider us hostile anymore. His request was legitimate, and he does in fact want help.” 

“Yeah, he’s for real,” Ryuji added. “I didn’t know he could go and do shit like that, but I guess he’s actually gone and changed.” 

“I suppose I should have seen that coming from Maruki’s Palace,” Morgana said in response. “Even if we hadn’t been more focused on fixing reality, he clearly didn’t have any hostility towards us.” 

“You were hearing everything he said that whole time, right?” Ann was incredulous. “Everything he said sounded like he was about to snap and murder us.” 

“He didn’t, though,” Yusuke replied. 

“I have to agree with Yusuke.” Sumire spoke up. “I was legitimately somewhat scared of him at first glance, but he was never a threat to us. From what I remember, he even refrained from fighting me so he didn’t kill me when Cendrillon went berserk.” 

“He definitely could have gone and killed all of you.” Futaba was furiously tapping away on her computer, but still listening. Ren ruffled her hair and turned back to the others. 

“I’m hearing mostly agreement, I think. Yusuke, what’s your actual take on this?”

Yusuke shuffled around in his chair, placing his hands folded on the table. “He is clearly not the same person that tried to kill us in Shido’s Palace. Even I can tell that he has gone through a serious change, and I do believe that medication is legitimate.” 

“It is. I memorized the name and searched it, and it is an anti-psychosis medication.” Makoto spoke up from the workbench where she was leaning. “I also went and did some background research on what news has been around Akechi. What he told us was correct, although the actual details of his diagnosis aren’t public but the fact he was discharged is.” 

“Look at you, little miss detective over here.” Ren walked over and began nudging her in the shoulder, but she pushed him away, smiling. “Stop it. But if I may cast my vote now, I am for infiltrating Akechi’s Palace.” 

“Same here.” “As am I!” “Sure.” “I think I shall support this as well.” Morgana just raised a paw. 

Ren looked at Haru, who had been silent the entire time. “Haru, what’s your take on this? I remember how you acted in Shido’s Palace-“ Haru raised a hand, and Ren shut up. 

“He killed my father. This is a fact. I do not know if he feels remorse or guilt about that. To be honest, I do not think I ever showed any signs of really being affected by it outwardly.” 

She paused for breath.

“I said my father was avenged by Shido’s change of heart. While I do hold that to be true...from what you are saying, it sounds as if Akechi’s past, murderer self is fighting with his current self, who is no longer a puppet to Shido. By that logic...one way or another, we may end up effectively killing the murderer Akechi buried within his psyche, causing issues.” 

She slammed a fist down on the table. “There is no better way to avenge my father than this. My vote is yes.” 

Ann nodded and shrugged. “After a speech like that, I think I’m convinced. I’m in.” 

Ren nodded and looked at Morgana. “Well, time to let him know.” 

“I already heard everything,” Akechi said from the stairs. The whole group jumped and those who weren’t looking at him turned to do so, but he was just leaning against the wall in the landing. “I could hear it all from downstairs, there’s not really much in the way of the sound.” He climbed the stairs and stopped at the top, looking Haru in the eyes. “I’m sorry to say that I never truly processed what I was doing for Shido. I never really understood the magnitude of killing a person. But now I do, and I want that part of me dead as much as you do.” He blinked and looked down, shamefully. “I’m so sorry for what I did to your family.” 

Haru nodded. “I already forgave you in Shido’s Palace. Now, it’s time to finish avenging him.” 

Akechi looked back up and walked over to the table, pulling the notebook towards him. “I’ve been running tests to see what exactly this Palace is, where it is, and who it belongs to. I don’t want to risk using my exceptionally buggy knockoff Nav on such a large group-“ 

“What knockoff?” Futaba literally leaped up and ran over to him. “You coded a Nav yourself? Can I see it?” 

He took out his phone. “I did my best at reverse-engineering the code you left in my phone from the trick you pulled on me into something functional. I was going to ask for your help in improving it if you said yes, so look away. Just please don’t delete my phone.” 

Futaba grabbed it and immediately ran over and plugged it into her laptop lying on the bed. “You’re much more techy than I gave you credit for, wow.” 

Akechi shrugged. “I tried my best,” he said before turning back to the table. “As I was saying, I’ve been able to narrow it down to either theater, play, or masquerade for the distortion, and either ‘Detective Prince,’ ‘Black Mask,’ ‘Crow,’ or something similar to who it actually belongs to.” 

“Your mind is much more fractured than I gave you credit for,” Yusuke said. “Are you certain the only diagnosis was psychosis?” 

“My reasoning is that since I wore so many fake identities of sorts before the events where everything went sideways, then it would make sense that I would have ended up compartmentalizing myself. I don’t have multiple personalities, I just think cognition is very strange like this.” He flipped to the next page. 

“The location is an entirely different issue. I have traveled all over Tokyo, and over much of Japan, and still ended up in it. Either I am somehow the location of my own Palace, or the entire world is.” 

“Palaces have to be fixed locations,” Makoto interjected. “Even Kaneshiro’s was based in a fixed location, that location being the entirety of Shibuya.” 

Both her and Ren’s faces lit up at the exact same time, with Akechi’s doing the same a split second later. All three turned and looked at each other, and Akechi muttered “Yes, I just remembered the same thing you did.” 

Ren smiled his Joker smile. “Have you ever heard the saying--”

“All the world’s a stage?”  
“All the world’s a stage?”  
“All the world’s a stage?”  
“You’re not the only smart one here, Amamiya. But yes, that thought had crossed my mind as well. I have done a few trips around inside, and while it does not seem to truly be a globe-spanning Palace, I have been unable to pinpoint a real-world equivalent for where the stage area would be.” 

“This is where the fun part begins, right?” Ryuji stood up, almost kicking his chair over as he did. “Guessing this stuff is always fun. Yo, Ren, you still have the Nav on your phone, right?” 

Ren nodded. “It’s not really the Nav, but it’s a way into the Metaverse. Oh, Futaba, you should update Akechi’s phone with the new version.” 

“The one with the V on it? Yeah, will do, soon as I finish looking through whatever on earth you did to your phone over here.” 

“Getting back to the matter at hand,” Makoto sighed and looked over Ren’s shoulder at his phone, standing behind him as he opened the Nav. “We should try and figure this out. You said you tried a bunch of names but they didn’t work?” 

“Sadly, no.” Akechi flipped the notebook back to the page with the names. “I tried all of these, but to no avail. They just kept telling me it was an incomplete result.” 

“Why not try all of them?” “Why not try all of them?” Haru and Sumire spoke at the same time, then stared at each other while everybody else stared at them both. Ren immediately punched in every single name and epithet Akechi had ever used, along with theater for the distortion and the world for the location. 

“Result found.” 

“Let’s head outside and go in.”

#### Part 2 - Hit The Lights

“You’d think we’d have been in at least one fight by now.”  
It was the third day of the group’s infiltration, and they hadn’t gotten into any combative encounters at all. Akechi had been correct about the size; it was obscenely massive, full of ornate, vaulted lobbies and side rooms of old, majestic wood and bright gold. Ren, Haru, Ryuji, and Futaba were inside a safe room that seemed to correspond to one of Akechi’s favorite cafes, while the others had split off and were doing their own trip. 

“It is quite odd how little attention we have in here,” Haru said. “However, we still haven’t found Akechi’s Shadow either, so we haven’t really done anything to go and bring attention to ourselves.” 

Futaba nodded, staring at a particular patch of the wall where she could see the cognitive code running through it. “It’s so weird. There’s all these cognitive versions of real people, but they’re all super polite, like they were only written with three lines of dialogue and no other scripting.” She stuck her hand into the gap, and a ripple suddenly spread through the entire room, nearly knocking Ren off his seat. Ryuji ran over and yanked her out of the gap, which sent her directly onto the floor with how hard he accidentally pulled. 

“Don’t do that! Do you even know what you’re doing?” He extended a hand to help her up, which she took. “Sort of! Let me figure that part out and I can answer you later.” 

“Guys, don’t,” Ren said. He was re-checking their supplies for the run, mainly consisting of medical supplies purchased from Dr. Takemi, a lot of coffee from LeBlanc, and even more highly caffeinated sodas and various snacks. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it wasn’t entirely clear which, they hadn’t needed to be used in the last two days, so they were all just devouring them once they left the Metaverse. 

“Sorry, dude,” Ryuji replied. “I’m just getting kinda crazy stuck around here, y’know? It’s not like what we do to just stroll around and chitchat instead of going and stealing the Treasure!” 

“A Phantom Thief is almost always a noble, familiar with the mechanics and intricacies of the upper class,” Morgana said as he slipped through the door. Ann and Haru followed through right behind him, both looking a bit dejected. 

“No luck?” Ren asked. Haru shook her head, and Ann flopped onto the table. Ryuji turned and looked away, eyes wide. “Just the same few responses about how the main actor is so versatile, and how he ‘wears many masks, all of them well’”. 

“Lady Ann’s been getting a bit annoyed with all of them,” Morgana said. “We still haven’t found a map, unfortunately, so we haven’t made much progress yet.” “Scratch that branch of the lobby apparently.” 

Morgana hopped up onto the table next to Ann and sat down, scratching his head. He’d been forced into his Metaverse form, but that was just a side effect of his existence. 

“Honestly, why don’t we just go straight to the stage?” Ryuji tossed the idea out after several minutes of silence. “We know the direction it’s in, and we know there has to be something there, so why not just hoof it? It’s not like we’re going to be finding—“ 

“I have found a map!” Yusuke threw open the door, jolting everybody and sending Morgana scrambling across the table. Sumire and Akechi followed right behind him, with Sumire chuckling a little bit. “He is absurdly excited about this,” Akechi said. “I just think it’s kind of funny,” Sumire replied through quiet laughter. Yusuke ignored them and dropped the small pamphlet onto the table, Ren snatched it up and began reading it as Makoto entered, rounding out the group. 

“It turns out that this ‘main actor’ has several bouncers on every entrance to the theater, so we may have some trouble getting in—oh you found something.” 

“He did,” Ren replied as he nodded to Yusuke. “This thing looks like it’ll be very helpful. There’s play times, a map for what looks like most of the place, and a—cast list?” He lowered the pamphlet so everybody could see it. “There’s a bunch of roles here: Detective Prince, Noble Thief, Masked Killer, Master Actor, a whole bunch of other stuff that I assume you’ve gone and done while you were plotting to kill Shido’s—“ he gestured to Akechi, who leaned in to look and nodded. “—and they’re all played by you. In fact, every single role in the entire thing, from the main actors to tech to literally the lighting is you.” 

“And to think I had a bad identity crisis,” Sumire said. “How many people were you trying to be at once?” 

“Far more than what was healthy, it seems,” Akechi replied. “Although I can definitely say that I am not most of those people anymore, if not all of them. Where is the stage from here?” 

“Closer than we thought. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes of walking out from here, so we should get moving. I don’t want to spend the rest of my break running around in your Palace, seeing as I only have like another week.” 

“Entirely understandable. I want this ended as quickly as you do. Now, to the stage?” 

With Futaba navigating, the group began making their way towards where they were hoping the stage was. Morgana kept trying to sneak off and look for things to steal, and Ren kept running off and coming back with strange little nick nacks that everybody assumed were souvenirs. Nothing really interesting happened, though, until they actually arrived at the stage. The doors were unlocked, but as the guide had said, on the inside there were bouncers--massive shadows in neat, identical suits wearing masks not unlike Akechi’s old Crow mask, except covering the entire face. They turned and stared at the group as they passed through the door, but didn’t make a move. The interior of the theater was even more ornate than the lobby outside, but the entire room was incredibly dark save for a lot of spotlights directed towards the stage, where what appeared to be--

“Is that Akechi’s Shadow?” Ann almost yelled. An Akechi lookalike, with the trademark yellow eyes of every Shadow, was pacing around on the stage, wearing a comically bad replica of the very coat the real Akechi was wearing right now. The lookalike stopped pacing and turned to the audience, its voice sounding like two beings were speaking at once as it projected across the entire massive theater. 

“Oh, how am I ever to catch those Phantom Thieves? I need to find them, or Master Shido will never trust me enough to let me get close once he wins. And if they keep going down this path, they’ll certainly figure things out...oh hello Ren!” 

A mental projection of Ren began walking out onstage, but it looked like a strange rough, unfinished projection, looking fine but somehow feeling incomplete. As the Ren projection moved towards Shadow Akechi, Shadow Akechi began running towards the edge of the stage, a frantic look on his face. A bunch of strange, glitch-like effects began appearing at the opposite end of the stage, and out stepped Shadow Akechi in his Crow outfit, once again looking like a poorly made replica. As the Crow version materialized fully, the Detective version began fading away with the exact same effects until only the Crow version was left. The Ren projection approached the Shadow Crow Akechi and waved, mouth moving but no noise coming out. 

“Yes, it’s quite a nice day out. Very good day for thievery activities, isn’t it?”  
“You’re kidding me.” The real Akechi had his face in his hands, and was shaking his head back and forth in a mix of secondhand embarrassment and shame. “This is painfully stupid to watch. Were most of the other Palaces this painful?” 

“Not quite, but they weren’t subtle either.” Makoto began looking at the upper part of the theater, trying to make out the catwalks or spotlights. “No sign of anybody on the catwalks, so I don’t know who could be doing tech.” 

“Would you like me to scout it out?” Sumire asked. “With it being the Metaverse and all, I could easily make my way up there.” 

“Oh! Joker, do you still have--ow!” Ren smacked Morgana in the back of the head, causing a few of the Shadows in the audience to shuffle and turn. 

“Don’t use code names yet! Akechi knows ours, remember? Using them could end up letting the Shadows know.” 

“But he’s not hostile to us now!” “I’m not, seriously.” “His current hostility doesn’t equal hostility here.” 

“I think I get what you mean,” Futaba said. “Shadows are reflections of the person’s inner thoughts and personality, right? And Akechi was putting on an act for a lot of people, including Shido, which would have required him to be hostile towards the Phantom Thieves.”

“And because those acts are coming out from the Shadows, and Shadows know what’s going on in the Metaverse, using code names would make them realize what we’re doing here!” Sumire jumped into the conversation again. “So we need to hold off of using our code names for as long as possible?” 

“Could you all actually be any louder back there?” 

The group whipped around to see the entire theater, including Shadow Crow Akechi, staring at them. The Shadow was standing on the edge of the staging, tapping his foot and looking at them impatiently. “I am trying to put on the act of a literal lifetime up here, attempting to fool everybody, and you’re over there being loud and disrupting my play!” 

The real Akechi stepped forwards, meeting the Shadow right in the eyes. “Do you really think you’re me?” 

“Oh, oh this--” the Shadow began laughing and stepped back from the edge, leaning back slightly. “This is a new wrinkle. Am I putting an act on for myself now? I’m trying to fool myself? Or this is some disgustingly naive attempt to claim my life for myself or something similar?” 

“It’s not naive, it’s true,” Ren said as he stepped forwards. 

“Oh, it’s the attic criminal! This gets better and better. I would _absolutely love_ to kill you myself, but--wait, wait, there’s…seven plus two equals nine wait you’re all the Phantom Thieves!” 

As the Shadow said it, the lights in the theater switched to red, and the theatergoers fled out the side exits in a flash. A burst of blue flame washed over the group, and all except Akechi were suddenly in their Phantom Thief garb, weapons and guns ready to be manifested or drawn, whichever was the case for each one. 

“Oh, I have waited far too long to kill all of you weaklings--AHH!” The Shadow staggered back as Ren’s gun rang out, the Crow uniform now clearly identical to how it originally was and clearly having several bullet holes in it. Ren’s last shot cracked the mask, and the Shadow brought a hand to its face as black blood flowed down its body. It looked at all of the bouncers, and pointed at the Thieves and Akechi. 

“I need to go heal from this _trash’s_ bullets. Fuck _ing KILL THEM!_ ” The stage began shifting and pulled the Shadow back into the darkness past the spotlights, and the bouncers began moving towards the Thieves, masks falling away to reform into hulking, winged masses of fused together armor and flesh. One threw a hand out and shot a lightning bolt at a catwalk, sending it tumbling down faster than all but one of the Thieves could react. 

“Lucy! Life Wall!” Haru tore her mask off and grabbed her hat in one motion, her other hand reached out towards the falling charged catwalk. Her Persona emerged forth and waved above the Thieves, an almost invisible golden sphere surrounding them as it did. The catwalk bounced off and hit one of the bouncers, and several more lightning bolts bounced off the sphere before it dissipated and the group scattered. 

“Mona, keep it cautious! Akechi, get out of here! You’re in no shape to fight! Everybody else--” Ren reloaded his gun and racked the slide back, peeking around the wall he was hiding behind. “Time to work for a living!” Ren leaped around the corner and threw his grappling hook right into one of the bouncers, throwing his knife into it as he flew closer and slamming it even deeper when he landed right on it, doing a flip as he kicked the knife deeper before landing, yanking it out, and dashing away. Before the bouncer could recover, Yusuke ran and dashed straight through it, sending black blood everywhere as it staggered back. Sheathing his sword, Yusuke took a glance around before unmasking with a flourish. “Persona! Strengthen my allies!” Gorokichi emerged for a moment, stomping the ground and exhaling a cloud of blue smoke from the pipe before vanishing as Yusuke leaped out of the way of another bouncer, grabbing onto Al Azif as Futaba swooped down to pick him up. The blue smoke made its way to the other Thieves as if it had a mind of its own, being absorbed into them as they all felt the power surge. 

“What are these things?” He asked Futaba as she flew towards Morgana, who was pinned behind a small partition wall as lightning bolts struck the ground around him. 

“Doing a scan, I don’t think these things are all that powerful. I can’t pinpoint any weaknesses though-woAH!” A bolt grazed Al Azif, sending in spinning in a circle as Yusuke dropped down next to Morgana with a roll. “I’ll cover you,” He whispered to Morgana. Morgana nodded and crouched down, waiting for the bouncers to be distracted with Yusuke. His assault rifle rang out as he suddenly popped up from behind the partition and began firing at the bouncers, and Morgana took the chance to slide right up to their faces and summon. “Diego!” Violent gusts of wind ripped through the Shadows as Diego began slashing, and Yusuke took the chance to reload before he started slashing himself. 

Al Azif had come to stop spinning near Ann and Ryuji, who were stuck back to back each facing a bouncer on their own. Ryuji was blasting away with his shotgun, and Ann was lashing the thing with her whip, but neither one was enjoying much success. “Could really use some support right about now?” He yelled up to Futaba.

“I’m in no position to be dropping bombs on you guys! I need to avoid crashing! I can try and drop a damage boost down there, but--” 

“Do it!” Ann shouted, now firing her gun with her other hand at the ever-closer bouncer. Futaba slammed a button and a flash of red-hot energy washed over both of them, augmenting the buffs from Yusuke even more. 

“Oh yeah, now we’re talking. Hit ‘em, William!” “Burn them, Celestine!” Ann’s and Ryuji’s Personas emerged, William firing a fist-shaped rocket from its arm cannon while Celestine popped a bubble of gum and sent a fireball flying. Both bouncers went flying backwards, but one never hit the floor, getting blasted apart by a Morning Star from Lucifer as Ren sprinted by. Not slowing down, he fired his grapple at the catwalk and flew up, landing next to Haru and Sumire. “How did you get up here?” He asked to Haru as he handed both of them a soda. “I explosion jumped,” she replied before parrying a swing from a bouncer and lopping off the arm that swung with her axe. 

“Joker, we should retreat sooner rather than later. We seem to have underestimated how many enemies there were.” Makoto was running circles around the bouncer with what little spare room she had on the catwalk, getting in punches when she could, but the platforms were shaking increasingly more and the bouncer was not going down any time soon. 

“Got it. Get down, Yoshitsune!” Haru and Makoto both ducked down as Ren unmasked and threw his arms out in opposite directions, both bouncers suddenly being sliced apart almost instantly as Yoshitsune dashed around. Ren remasked and looked around, all three of them taking a moment to breathe. Makoto turned to face him. “Did Akechi get out when the fight started?”

Ren paled and leaned over the railing to look. “Oh shit.”  
Akechi hadn’t left the Palace when the fighting started, but taken cover behind one of the doors to the theater and drawn a dagger that he had stolen from the stash of old gear in Leblanc’s attic the day they’d entered the Palace for the first time. He was carefully peering around the corner, trying to find an opening to fight one of the bouncers, when an uppercut from Makoto sent one sprawling on the ground. Akechi immediately ran, jumped, and slammed the dagger into the approximate head of the thing, killing it. Standing up, he dramatically wiped the dagger on his sleeve before Sumire literally slammed into him, having been sent flying by a hit from a bouncer. 

“What are you still doing here?” “I’m going to help you in this. I care about this too--down!” He grabbed her and pulled her down, narrowly dodging a blast of nuclear energy. Sumire was immediately back on her feet, grabbing Akechi and running towards the descending Al Azif. 

“They’re evolving!” She yelled as she began firing her Winchester at the bouncer that had hit her. “They’re getting stronger, and have more attack types. I don’t think these things have any sort of core weakness, but Oracle? Get Akechi out of here!” Al Azif lowered as far as it could, and Sumire nearly threw Akechi onto it, trying to reload as she did. “Just get out of the theater and head to a safe room. Leave the Palace if you can. If you die, we’re all going to die.” Sumire gave up on the reload and turned to face the still-coming bouncer, unmasking and doing a flip to land right behind Ella. Al Azif was about to take off with Akechi barely balanced in the center, when an explosion went off in the catwalks and everybody turned to look, since most of the Thieves save Sumire had finished off their bouncers. 

While Sumire had been fighting down there and dragging Akechi, Ren, Haru, and Makoto had desperately been trying to find their way down from the catwalks. Ren’s summoning of Yoshitsune had caused a fair bit of collateral damage, severing half the cords keeping the catwalks suspended above the theater. The three had been making their way towards the stage, trying to find a way back down to the battle, when one of the remaining bouncers had leapt up to the catwalk and landed right in their path. Ren had immediately leapt in front and unmasked, calling forth--

“Ippon-Datara wait no!” Ippon-Datara sprang forth, and slammed it's hammer into the catwalk. The attack energy from the impact traveled along, climbing up the leg of the bouncer and onto its chest, causing it to explode very violently. The shockwave snapped most of the remaining cables, and the catwalks began plummeting down as Ren grappled his way off, Sumire leapt from platform to platform before slamming her sword into the wall and slowing her fall, and Haru called Lucy forth to carry her down. The platforms crashed down onto the theater floor one after another, narrowly missing the dodging Thieves and hitting some of the bouncers coming in from doors near the stage. 

“Joker, now might be a good time to leave,” Makoto shouted as Ren landed next to her. He nodded, whistled, and swung his arm in a circle before pointing his thumb over his shoulder. The other Thieves, including Akechi, nodded and began booking it towards the door. 

“We’ll pick this back up tonight or tomorrow. Akechi, this time you are definitely not coming EVERYBODY MOVE!” Ren’s commands were interrupted as a platform slammed into the ground next to the Thieves, evidently thrown by a bouncer. The platform partially shattered as it impacted the ground, sending shards of metal flying into Ann and Yusuke, but the main part had bounced after hitting the ground and gone flying towards the closest doorway, blocking it off--but not before slamming into Sumire dead on, knocking her out and onto the ground. 

“Violet!” Ryuji yelled as he lost sight of her from the opposite side of the doorway. The Thieves stopped running, and the bouncers began closing in on them. Everybody readied for a fight, except Ren. 

“I’m ending this, now. Raoul!” Ren nearly screamed the name as he unmasked, calling forth his own ultimate Persona. “Finish this, now!” 

“Gladly,” Raoul answered before flying up and raising his hand, tightly clenching it. The room was suddenly drenched in darkness black as night, and a large purple moon suddenly appeared above the Thieves. The bouncers all stared at it for a split second before succumbing to a sort of half-sleep, none conscious enough to see Raoul dive down, bring his unclenched up to his shoulder, and making a throwing motion towards the ground as he landed back behind Ren and stomped the ground like he was drop-kicking somebody. Powerful tendrils of Curse energy began tearing the bouncers apart, but none of them realized it until they were already dead. Ren put his mask back on and, realizing how heavily he was breathing, had Sumire slash open the platform debris. They had all ran out of the Palace before Ren spoke up, panting between each word as they all nearly collapsed in front of Leblanc. 

“Have any of you guys seen Akechi or Sumire?”

#### Part 3 - Prove Thyself

Sumire was lying on the patient bed with a bandage around her head when Akechi came through the exam room’s door, finishing up plotting his phone back in his pocket. “That was the others. They all made it out fine, although some did catch some shrapnel. They’ll likely be here soon.” 

Sumireo smiled weakly and turned to look at Dr. Takemi. “You’re a lifesaver, literally,” she said with involuntary quietness. 

“I owe Ren far too many favors from last year, and this is the least I could do,” Tae replied. “How many of them caught shrapnel, did you say?” 

“Only two of them, and it’s not that serious apparently.” Akechi picked up Sumire’s Winchester from the table by the bed, which was covered in some blood from the platform’s hit, and began examining it. “What level of danger was she in, had she not been brought here?” He asked with audible concern. 

“Well, head wounds bleed a lot, and this one was fairly deep, but it wasn’t wide and seemed to have clotted quite quickly. While I advise a break from any sort of serious activity until it begins to heal, you should be in good shape after that.” 

Sumire grunted as she tried to get up, swinging herself around to be seated on the edge of the bed. “So I’ll be able to fight in a few days?” 

Tae raised her hands. “I don’t know what you guys do, but I can’t make that judgement.” 

“I’ll take that as a likely no,” Akechi said as he kneeled down in front of Sumire, subtly slipping the Winchester inside his coat. “You really shouldn’t fight until you’re feeling better. I know you want to help, but having somebody recovering from a wound like this could very well end up hurting us more than helping us. It might be a good idea to simply stay home the next two or three days, that way you don’t end up getting us killed and those weaklings in the Palace don’t go after the smell of blood--” He stopped himself, noticing Tae staring. “I’m fine. My apologies for the outburst, I failed to take my medication this morning.” 

“As long as you don’t try to murder us, it doesn’t make much of a difference.” “That’s shockingly kind words, I must say.” “Well, since it’s not something you can help, I can’t really fault you that much for it.” “Seriously what is going on.” 

Akechi turned to Tae, who was simultaneously pale and red from embarrassment. “Everything is fine, there’s nothing going on here at all. We’re just talking like normal people do.” 

“Is anything involving us really normal?” Sumire said. “I would say that us two most of all have earned the right to do the things normal people do,” Akechi replied. 

“Why us two specifically?” “Have we not both come from places and situations that divorced us from what people would consider normal, and made it through?” “Akechi I don’t know if you’ve quite made it through yet.” Sumire let out a weak laugh, and Akechi smiled. “Well, that’s why I’m here,” he joked back. 

“I’m going to go leave you two alone.” Tae turned to leave the exam room. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Akechi yelled after her. He was about to go follow her, but a sudden grunt from Sumire distracted him. She was standing up, barely balanced in place, one hand outstretched for balance and the other being on her head. She took a step forwards and immediately stumbled, only to be caught by Akechi. 

“You should wait until you feel at least somewhat better before getting up and walking around. You’re probably really light-headed right now, which is going to make a lot of things hard. Just wait it out and get moving once you’re feeling better.” “You...just let me walk on my own.” “Sumire, there’s a lot of fights to be picked with a lot of people, but this is not one of them.” Sumire sat back down on the bed, leaning against the wall, before speaking. “Akechi, I know what’s up with you.” 

“Oh?” 

She looked him in the eyes. “The police department doesn’t have an on-staff psychiatrist. And I don’t even think that bottle’s full.” 

“We’ll hash this out once you’re better, later.” “No, I think we’ll do it now.” Akechi tried to walk away, but Sumire grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back over. “Goro, I saw you in Maruki’s. Be honest with me, who are you? A Detective, or a killer?” 

“Do you want to make this a confrontation?” “I think I will.” “You don’t want to.” “No, I do. I need to know if my friends are being led around by a psychopath luring them to their deaths!” 

“I AM NOT A PSYCHOPATH!” Akechi almost screamed it, eyes wide open as he violently pulled his sleeve out of Sumire’s grasp. “Did you not go and support the measure to infiltrate my Palace because Makoto said I was legitimate?! Learn to read the message you fucking wrote! I’m trying to figure out this shitty situation as much as you are, so give me some _credit_ that I’m actually trying and not just resigning myself to being who I was a year ago! I want to change here because I hate who I used to be, the piece of god damn trash that I was!” 

“Akechi, calm down--” “No! You wanted a confrontation, and here we are! This is your answer on who I am!” 

Akechi stopped yelling and stared at Sumire with a snarl on his face and hands balled into fists, breathing the slightest bit heavier than normal. “That...is your answer. I’m trying to find that out too.” 

“Akechi, I’m sorry.” “Don’t pull that bullshit on me if you’re just trying to do damage control.” “No, I-I legitimately am so sorry. I didn’t...I didn’t...you’re right. I did literally just say that you’re still on your way through this and then I went and claimed that you were faking it and oh god I am an awful person and I am so so sorry that I went and made you lash out like that and I understand what you’re going through and want you to stay so we can help you and you can become part of the group--” 

Akechi held up a slightly trembling hand, silencing Sumire. “I forgive you. While your concern is justified, let’s both agree what just happened was not the smartest thing you’ve done.” “And the two of us are the two smartest here.” “Don’t sell Ren short, I learned that the hard way.” 

Sumire laughed again, a fuller one this time, but Akechi didn’t. “If I may linger on what you said for a moment, what do you mean by part of the group?” 

Sumire placed her hand on top of Akechi’s, removing it from her shoulder, but she held on. “With the Thieves, with us. With--” 

“You?” 

Silence. 

“Well I mean, it’s always good to have somebody who can fight--” Akechi cut her off again. 

“I’m just glad you’re welcoming me in here.” 

Their hands stayed together for an instant more, but they both pulled away when Ryuji slammed open the door, carrying a limping Yusuke to the bed. Ann followed closely behind, one arm covering her shoulder and the other covering her side. Tae almost ran in behind them, yelling at Ren. “This is not ‘not that serious’ this is incredibly serious! Do you know how much internal trauma shrapnel can cause?” 

“Would you prefer it if I said yes or no?” “Just tell me you haven’t tried to pull it out.” “I’m not an idiot, I tried to do what I could.” “Yes, well, at the very least they’re not bleeding anymore. Yusuke, are you hurt in your thigh or your calf?” 

As Tae began trying to treat the partially healed injuries on Yusuke and Ann, Akechi helped Sumire out. They were sitting next to each other in the waiting room when Ren came back out. “You alright?” He asked. 

“She’s fine, just out of commission for a few days. Ann and Yusuke?” “Using Salvation might have been overkill, but they’re definitely going to be fine. They weren’t hit that bad, and cognition’s going to let us ignore most of those injuries.” “Noted.” 

Ren’s eyes flickered between the two of them, noting Makoto’s lack of hostility. “Everything okay between you two?” 

Akechi was about to explain, but Sumire spoke first. “We’re fine. You should worry about the people that haven’t been treated.” He clearly didn’t buy it, and he shot Akechi a hidden glare as he left that Sumire missed but Akechi picked up on. He followed after Ren, and the two of them were alone in the street outside the clinic. Akechi closed the door behind him, and Ren immediately wheeled around and pointed at him. “What did you do to her?” 

“I didn’t do anything.” Akechi raised his hands. “We had a confrontation after she called me a psychopath and claimed I was luring you all to your deaths, but we talked, and it’s fine.” Ren lowered his finger, but ran a hand through his hair. “I know you don’t trust me. I understand. But I wish to change that, and based off of what Sumire told me, the others do too.” 

Akechi’s second tense silence in the last few minutes set across the alley as Ren held his chin in thought, before looking directly into Akechi’s eyes. “What did I say before we went into the Velvet Room?” 

“Ren, we are not rivals anymore.” “I thought we stopped that in Maruki’s.” “You literally looped ‘You’re Nothing Without Me’ on the speakers as a distraction, we were very clearly both still trying to one-up the other.” Ren looked back down at the ground, thinking for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling something out. “Do you remember what this means?” 

Akechi looked at his glove, and then back to Ren. “Is this your way of saying you want to fight, now?” “Do you want to fight now?” 

“To be honest? I don’t want to fight at all.” “You didn’t think that earlier.” “That was helping you, that’s different.” “That was helping Sumire. Akechi, you’re not being subtle.” 

Akechi shot Ren a cold glare before blinking, turning away, and relaxing his gaze. “I...I just don’t want to fight any more. My medication’s helped me realize that I never truly fought for a purpose before, always going on the whims of other people. I took up the mantle of a Prince, of Robin Hood, while just discarding the honor that those names and titles are supposed to embody. After that, fighting has just left a bad taste in my mouth.” 

“You didn’t think that earlier today.” 

“Look, in here--” Akechi pointed to his head. “I have some semblance of a purpose, a reason. But even then I don’t entirely like it. I just don’t...like fighting, even if it is for a purpose, simply because I did it for so long without one and I realize just what I went and did.” 

“Do you not want to take your heart?” “I do! Just--” Akechi grimaced, letting out a pained grunt, before turning to look Ren in the eyes. Ren couldn’t tell what emotion was in them. 

“I can’t bring myself to do what I need to do. I need you to do it.” 

“You’ll need to face yourself eventually.” 

Akechi took the glove from Ren’s hand and stared at the ground, his face cold and unmoving. “Just _fix_ my head.”

#### Part 4 - Get To The Fun Part Alread

“Are you trying to get me killed?” “Noir please stop pointing the rocket launcher at people.” 

Another 36 hours in Akechi’s Palace had gotten to the Thieves’ heads a bit. Sumire was going to be out for the next day, while Ann and Yusuke were slated to be back in the fight within three hours. Meanwhile, the remaining Thieves were...getting a bit bored. 

“I’m not even pointing it at you! I’m just holding it!” “Noir, put it down before you hurt somebody.” “I-fine.” 

Ren, Ryuji, Morgana, Futaba, Haru, and Makoto were in another safe room, just past the backstage staff doors. They’d made it inside past another crew of bouncers, which had slowly become more and more like traditional angels, if they were being dressed up as actors. 

“So do we actually have a plan, or are we ignoring trigger discipline.” “Oracle you don’t even have guns!” “Everybody, calm down.” Ren produced the map Yusuke had found and held it out. “Oracle, can you make anything out of this that we didn’t already know?” 

Futaba shrugged. “If we get another map of the staff area, I might be able to tap in to the cognition and get us a view of what the whole Palace might look like, but most of this place is just massive lobbies and corridors. Our best shot is likely just getting into some sort of important, closed off room so you guys can guard me while I try to get some information out of tapping in.” “Any suggestions for rooms?” 

She pointed at a small room just off the main hall. “Right there looks small enough. Think you guys can keep me covered?” “We’ve got your back Oracle.” 

Five minutes later, Futaba was elbow-deep in the wall of a closet while the others were pressed against the wall, guns trained on the door. “How’s it going?” Ren asked. 

“It’s going, but there’s not much new information--wait.” Futaba reached in up to her shoulders, and immediately pulled back out, yelping. “Akechi’s Shadow knew I was in there! It left a note for me, though. It wants to meet us in the unfinished theater, apparently. Following the maintenance hallways should get us there, since apparently they all terminate around there.” 

A loudspeaker crackled on. “Better hurry! That lead you just got might not last forever, or I might get bored waiting around for a meetup with my contact for this investigation.” Akechi’s voice, distorted like a Shadow’s, echoed through the halls outside the closet. Ren kicked the door open and checked the hall before gesturing for the others to come out and sprinting down towards the industrial-looking maintenance hatch at the end of the hall. The sound of sprinting footsteps was the only noise in the halls for a few seconds, but the noise of more doors slamming open behind the Thieves and stomping, stampeding feet soon drowned it out. Ryuji unmasked for just long enough to turn around, fire off a Maziodyne at the growing horde of knockoff-looking angels that were the bouncers, and keep running with the others. At the hatch, Ren began trying to pull it open to no avail, but Makoto yanked him away and fired two rounds into the hatch’s look, blasting it wide open. Ren dashed inside, followed by others, and Ryuji yanked the hatch closed before Futaba plunged her hand into the floor, sealing off the hatch. 

“I can seal it off, but the wall’s still thin.” “Let’s move.” Ren started sprinting down the hallway, with the others falling very close behind. The tunnels were narrow, short, and fairly damp, but surprisingly well-lit, and the Thieves were running down it as fast as they could. The sound of fists slamming against the other side of the wall chased them down, but none of the Shadows actually got through before Ren yanked the hatch at the end open and shoved the other Thieves out into the unfinished theater. The theater was almost pitch-black inside, with exposed support pillars visible against the backdrop of construction floodlights. The voice of Shadow Akechi rang out again, echoing off of the cavernous space. 

“Welcome, Phantom Thieves of Hearts!” “Are you going to say that this was a sting op?” “You know me too well, but the result’s the same regardless of your childish taunts.” The floodlights swung around, revealing a massive shadow belonging to a misshapen angel, sword plunged through its chest, floating in the air. It moved a deformed arm to drag the sword out and wield it, but before the blade had even cleared the flesh something massive slashed through it, cleaving the angel in two before it disintegrated like Shadows do. 

“Taste my brave blade!” Yusuke leaped down from one of the alcoves high up in the theater, masking as Gorokichi caught him. Ann landed behind him, using her whip to slide down the pillars and nail a roll as she hit the ground. The moment of victory didn’t last for too long, though, as a scream rang out from behind the pillars and more smaller but faster angels began swarming down. Yusuke, Ann, and Ren all drew their weapons, while the others unmasked. 

Ren and Shadow Akechi both shouted at the same time. “Kill them!” “Take them down!” 

Yusuke and Ann started laying down fire, dropping a few of the angels to the ground for Ryuji to finish off with a Maziodyne. Ren fired a few shots, then began running towards a pillar and grappling up, trying to get to the apex of the theater. Futaba was in Al Azif giving everybody boosts, but she was stuck on the ground, since the air was full of swinging swords and Riot Gun spells crackling. Haru was alternating between firing Mapsiodynes and rockets into the air, back to back with Makoto who was doing the same with Mafreidynes. Swaths of angels dropped and disintegrated, but they kept swarming in, and Ann and Haru couldn’t keep up enough healing for everybody for everybody. Ren peeked out from around the pillar he was climbing in time to see Futaba get slammed by the blunt end of an angel’s sword and fall to the ground, horribly dazed. A bit of blood trickled down her face, and Ann ran over to try and cast a heal on her. 

“Shit. Raoul!” Ren unmasked and leapt off the pillar, Raoul’s power and wings boosting him upwards into the center of the swarm. Dozens of angels flew down towards him, but he didn’t react, just casting his arms out to his sides. Ren let out a yell, energy coursing through both him and Raoul, and massive tendrils of Curse magic unleashed themselves from both Phantom Thief and Persona, literally burning in intensity and power. Most of the angel swarm was wiped out in the first few seconds of the red, white, and black maelstrom, while the remainders went down to shots from the other Thieves or just to Raoul. Ren glided down to the other Thieves, keeping Raoul out long enough to land and immediately masking back up, almost collapsing in front of the group. 

“Anybody want a bite?” He asked before dropping to a knee. “Damn I’m tired.” 

“Joker, chin up. I’ll get the stuff out, you wait.” Morgana began rummaging around in Ren’s coat, digging out a coffee thermos and several snacks while he caught his breath. Haru and Yusuke stood guard as the others consumed what they could in as little time as possible, with Ann managing to heal Futaba, but Ren was still completely winded when the sound of dress shoes on metal echoed through the theater. Shadow Akechi, once again dressed in his detective coat, stepped around the corner of one of the pillars. It slowly clapped, yellow eyes wide with madness. 

“You’re putting up so much of a fight, even the injured ones! I’m honestly impressed! But you still need to die like the pathetic worms you are.” 

The Thieves didn’t move, waiting for Joker to make the first call as always, but Ryuji shouted his reply. “If you want us dead so bad, why don’t you just effin’ off us yourself, huh? Make things easier for everybody involved?” 

“Oh I’m highly tempted, and I honestly want to, but that would be completely counterintuitive for what I want to do. I can accomplish so much more by using you, like I was, and you’ve already got the masks for it!” Shadow Akechi strolled forwards, a spotlight latching onto it and following the Shadow so as to make it impossible to miss. “God, it’s so much fun doing this, toying with people, I can see why people did it to me. But right now, I’m only interested in playing with you and using you as much as I can. After all, how else is a detective prince supposed to catch some criminals?”  
The spotlight began to slowly fade from white to a more reddish tinge, and Shadow Akechi rotated its shoulders like it was preparing for a fight. The Thieves readied themselves, but half of them were panting and Ren was still partially holding on to Makoto. 

“It’s time to break some new case news--AND SOME HEADS!” Shadow’s Akechi’s eyes went wide, red veins clouding over the yellow iris, and it began to bring its hands up as if it was going to fire off something as the spotlight got brighter and redder and the Thieves just watched and braced in terror--

“Shut up already would you?” 

Everything stopped. The light went normal, Shadow Akechi relaxed, and everybody whipped around to look at the darkness-shrouded pillar that a distorted, unclear voice had come from. 

“Is that who I think it is?” Shadow Akechi began slowly walking towards the pillar, eyes widening inch by inch as it got closer. “Did the girl with the concussion decide to try and pick a fight? Little miss Niijima trying to prove herself like she did with everybody else? You’re nothing better than-FUCKING HELL!” 

The barrel of Sumire’s rifle thrust itself into the spotlight in time to spew a bullet into Shadow Akechi’s leg. Reddish-black blood went flying out of the wound, and the Shadow grabbed its leg but didn’t drop down. Another round went into the other leg, toppling it over and sending its face into the dirty unfinished floor. 

“I am going to _end you_ for that! Even if you get away legally, I will ruin your life! I can frame you, blame you, discredit you, do everything I can to ensure you get the lack of peace that I have!” Shadow Akechi had hauled itself up, still kneeling but facing roughly towards where the gun was. The barrel was still visible in the spotlight, but the hand and person holding it were in the darkness. “You are fucking dead, all of you! You’re pathetic little thieves led by a piece of attic-dwelling criminal trash, and I will make sure you all rot in jail!” 

The gun retreated back into the darkness. 

“Do you fucking hear me?!” Shadow Akechi yelled. 

A black-gloved hand re-emerged from the darkness before jamming the gun into the Shadow’s head. 

“You’re an insufferable, lying piece of trash.” “Fuck you!” 

The real Akechi stepped into the light, detective coat unbuttoned and showing a casual white t-shirt with a raven graphic plastered on it underneath. He cycled the gun with a gloved finger, a scowl on his face.  
“Disgusting.” 

**BANG.**

#### Part 5: I’m Waking Up

Akechi wiped the blood off the Winchester’s barrel on his pants and walked towards the Thieves, keeping his hands raised. 

“So much for not being able to do it, huh?” Ren smiled painfully, picking himself back up.

“I realized that I can’t hold on or things won’t change. Apparently, I haven’t lost my timing.” Akechi lowered his hands and cycled the Winchester several times, reloading it according to the rules of cognition. “Are you injured, or just tired?” 

“Tired. How long have you been following us?” “Earlier today. I was hoping I’d at least be able to even glimpse my Shadow’s true form, but this was a far, far better deal than that.” 

“Do you know how lucky you are?” Futaba groaned. “You could have just given yourself a mental shutdown from that! We could all be dead!” 

“Doesn’t his Shadow have, like, multiple parts though?” Ann asked. “Wouldn’t we need to kill all of them to cause a shutdown?” 

“That’s what I thought too,” Akechi said. “Since we’re still here and I’m not dead, I don’t think killing an individual Shadow will do anything. I’m willing to wager that there’s a Shadow for each sort of role that I used to play and one that’s actually my Shadow, what I perceived myself as. That’s the one that would cause a mental shutdown if killed, but knowing our luck, I don’t think we’ll be bumping into that one for a while.” 

“We do have weird luck with the order of bosses in a Palace, huh.” Ryuji quietly remarked. 

“Regardless of what our future moves are—“ Yusuke spoke up, staying in a swivel with his gun freshly reloaded. “We should establish them outside. We are in no state to fight, and we have made a great stride towards our objective.” 

“Oh you’re not going anywhere!” 

Another voice echoed from high up in the rafters, the distorted double tones of Akechi's Shadow bouncing off the pillars. 

“We should run.” “Agreed.” “Morgana,Yusuke, you two—“ Ren grunted and drew his gun, looking up at the darkened ceiling. “You two cover our six. Everybody else, keep it moving the whole time, as fast as possible. We’re going.” 

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to just run from this one,” Akechi said, eyes following a glint of red across the top of the pillars that everybody missed, save Ren. 

“Yeah, I see it too. Change of plan. Ryuji, do you still have the injector?” Ryuji didn’t speak, just pulled out an adrenaline shot from his pocket and spun it in his hand before handing it to Ren. He didn’t inject it immediately, though. He scanned the top of the room, following the small little light that was getting a tiny bit brighter and visible to everybody now. A tense silence dropped over the room as the Thieves grouped up back-to-back in a circle, everybody watching the movement in the rafters. Nobody spoke, until Akechi groaned and started yelling. “Are you going to come down and fight, or run like you used to?” 

“You’re calling me a runner? You’ve gone and left everything you were behind!” The voice yelled back, and the light stopped--looking directly at Akechi. 

“At least I’m facing this on my own terms, instead of getting forced into a corner by a man who was using me.” 

“You talk so high and mighty for a man who couldn’t even win a fight against a criminal in an attic?” “You’re still on that?” “Joker, not now. And you couldn’t either!” 

There was a roar of rage that was only partially human, both in sound and quality, and something landed hard on the floor in front of the Thieves in a blur of black, red, and a darkness different from the rest of the room-one almost artificial. 

“Is that who I think it is—“ “Yes it is, you moronic joke of an athlete!” Ryuji was cut off as the shroud of darkness lifted, tendrils of black swirling around the Shadow standing in front of the group. 

Akechi stared into the eyes of another one of his Shadows, red irises looking into yellow ones hidden behind a red mask. 

There was more silence, with the Thieves and both Akechis on the verge of attacking but nobody moving. Ren was about to make the call to attack when Akechi’s Black Mask Shadow let out a visceral scream that was almost tangible and drew his gun, aiming at the real Akechi. Akechi mirrored the Shadow’s movements in perfect time, complete with the enraged scream. Both fired, a laser flying over one’s shoulder while a slug flew over the other’s. Ren chose that moment to jam the syringe into his thigh, letting out a whoop as he leaped upright, dropped it, and sprinted towards the Shadow drawing his dagger as he ran. The Shadow tossed the gun into its right hand and drew its blade with its left, deflecting a swing from Ren while firing off another shot at Akechi. Akechi grabbed the gun and tried to pull it away, but the Shadow yanked its arm back and wrapped its other arm around Ren’s, pulling them together into a mexican standoff. Ren’s blade on the Shadow’s neck, its blade on his, Akechi pointing Sumire’s gun at its head, its gun pointed at his heart. 

“You still can’t beat the attic trash, can you?” Akechi snarled. “You always were the most disappointing one. Couldn’t fight for shit unless you snapped.”

“You’re calling ME a disappointment? You left it all behind! You could have caused all the chaos you wanted, and you went and WASTED IT!” The Shadow suddenly twisted its arm again, smacking Ren in the face with the flat side of the blade and pistol-whipping Akechi. Both of them fell down to the ground, Ren doing a roll and picking himself up as Akechi took a breath and slid the revolver back into his waistband. 

“You’re going to fight me, without any weapons? Oh, you’re so much fucking stupider than I remember!” “It’s more fun this way, isn’t it?” The Shadow’s head twitched inhumanly to the side as a toothy, disturbed grin spread across its face. Muscles began twitching beneath the outfit as its body began to distort, inhuman bulges bursting with black blood as long, smoky tendrils emerged from the Shadow’s back, raising it up in the air. A cloud of darkness and black feathers swirled around what was the main body, suddenly bursting away to reveal what it looked like if you made Cthulhu a bird. Akechi’s eyes widened as he reached back towards the gun, but suddenly jolted to a stop as a surge of pain flooded through him. He dropped to his knees, literally shaking as bits of blue energy began to flicker in around him, eyes widening. A scream of pain erupted from Akechi as a sudden burst of power erupted out from him, and the Thieves took a step back in terror while the energy began to intensify. 

“Is he okay?” Ann shouted. “Is this because he killed his own Shadow?” 

“No, it’s not even close to that!” Futaba yelled back. “Doing that looks like it caused the Palace to partially weaken, some sort of psychological block falling--like opening a closed door but much larger scale! It’s not affecting the Palace, it’s affecting him!” 

As if on cue, Akechi let out another scream, almost throwing himself upwards to face the ceiling as energy coursed through the air around him, growing in concentration behind him and around his face. 

“Do we help him?” Makoto began to push forward, concern in her voice, but Ren stopped her.  
“No,” He muttered. “This one’s on him.” 

One more scream came out from Akechi’s mouth, but this one didn’t end in more pain. Instead, it dragged on for much longer, before he suddenly stopped shaking, the scream quieting down and turning into a laugh. 

“Oh, you are SCREWED!” Akechi took his right hand, raised it to the mass of blue fire on his face, and ripped it off, energy trailing behind it as it faded in his hand. The energy behind him flared with power, before materializing into a familiar black and red shape. 

“I haven’t felt this good in a long, long time. Joker, what say we CAPITALIZE ON THIS?” Akechi turned to face Ren, an evil grin plastered over his face, traces of madness visible in his eyes as Hereward stood behind him. Ren smirked, sprinting forwards and unmasking to call out Raoul. A burst of curse energy erupted underneath him as Ren flew upwards, more energy emerging from Raoul’s hand to burn away at the Shadow. Raoul kicked off the closest pillar and refreshed their momentum, leaving Ren essentially giving air support to Akechi. Akechi saw, and was about to begin attacking when a small burst of orange energy washed over Hereward. Ann yelled from behind him. “Hit it hard where it hurts!” Akechi’s smile grew wider, and he charged towards the Shadow, Hereward surging with power behind him. 

“YOU FUCKER!” The Shadow bellowed in an almost unhearable voice, the pillars shaking as it did. “YOU THINK THIS WILL SAVE YOU AT ALL? FAT FUCKING CHANCE! TIME TO DIE!” Half the tentacles lashed out towards Akechi, while the other half blasted Kougas out towards Ren. The spells didn’t even come close to Ren, who kept bouncing around blasting Eiagons at the Shadow, but Akechi had more fun with his threats, dodging and rolling just as each of them hit the ground. Once the last one hit, he spun and pointed, cackling. “Hereward, crush them!” Hereward drew several arrows back on the bow and loosed them, each turning into a Rebellion Blade before impact, severing the tentacles. Ren took note and grappled to a pillar, switching to Yoshitsune as he did, severing his tentacles while he hung in the air. The Shadow roared and raised its arms, the beginnings of a Megidoloan forming between them, but didn’t get far before a curse-laden arrow from Hereward pierced its skull at the same time as Raoul’s boot and Ren’s blade. The Shadow twitched for a moment before collapsing, disintegrating into red and black blood. Ren remasked as Hereward faded away, leaving Akechi standing there, smile still on but eyes back to normal. “That was fun, don’t you think?” 

“May I suggest we discuss the enjoyment of this later?” Yusuke said from the back of the group. “While this did look visually incredible, we should leave before a third shows up. I think Joker’s adrenaline is wearing off.” 

“I might still have a little—nope, there it goes. Shit, my leg. Could somebody carry me out?”

#### Part 6 - Picture Imperfect

“Why are we up this early, man? I needed some sleep after last night.” “I know you’re fine, Ryuji, stop complaining! It’s boss time!” 

Ryuji had fair reason to complain. The group was standing in the Shibuya walkway at 4 AM, just hours after they had made it out of Akechi’s Palace. Ren has gotten enough sleep to recover from the induced adrenaline high, and Sumire had stopped bleeding and rested enough to the point where Takemi had tentatively cleared her as good to go. The group was still waiting for Sumire to show up with a new batch of medical supplies, as well as Akechi. 

“So do we know what happened with him yesterday? I still don’t know how he just got his Persona out of nowhere.” Haru was a bit tired, but there was alertness fighting for control in her voice. 

“I think he overcame a sort of psychological block preventing him from accessing his Persona, probably because the image of him killing his older self is fairly significant.” Ren took a sip of coffee and looked out the window, carefully examining the empty streets below them. 

“I’d concur, except while that was cathartic, I’m not quite good yet.” Akechi stepped onto the walkway, wearing a new shirt with a similar raven logo but otherwise dressed almost the same. “This is yours by the way.” He tossed Sumire’s Winchester back to her, and she just slipped it into her waistband. “I knew you’d taken it from the doctor’s,” she replied.

“But you were texting me in a panic—“ Ann shut up as Sumire glared at her, and Akechi chuckled. “I won’t do it again, don’t worry,” he said. 

Ren took another sip and turned to Akechi. “You sure you want to do this? If you go in again, I have no idea what would happen. Yesterday seemed more like luck than anything else that it worked out for you.” 

“Personally, I think that it’s actually better this way, as now I get to confront my issues myself, with backup.” “We are far more than just backup, Akechi.” “I never said you were just backup, only that you were backup.” 

“Everybody ready?” Makoto was shockingly awake for the time, new bag of supplies slung over her shoulder. Grunts of assent and a few tired groans were a sign of yes, and Ren pulled out his phone and yanked them in.

“Holy shit.” Ryuji didn’t try to be clever about his shock. The Palace had massively reshaped itself, not only looking much less ornate and much more run-down, but revealing something underneath the wood—patches of rusted gears and a strange black substance, unmoving and static. The entrance hall had been reshaped, formerly straight lines and tall pillars now distorted like space itself was breaking to create an archway into the now massive main theater. 

“Is this an invitation?” “Isn’t the only one left the Crow version?” “He was pretty dramatic in Sae’s Palace.” “Panther, Fox, I can hear both of you.” Ann and Yusuke quieted down, slightly more out of just how friends do this time instead of just fear. 

As the group pressed onwards towards the theater, Sumire ran up behind Ren and started whispering. “Senpai, weren’t there people here last time?” “Yeah. Could be the change in the Palace’s structure made them dissappear—“ “I don’t think so.” Sumire held out her hand so only Ren could see it, showing him a piece of bloody cloth. “I picked this up just now. It was lying against one of the pillars. It’s none of ours, and it’s not Akechi’s, so the only place it could have come from—“ “Is the projections. Futaba, how many Shadows are left in here?” 

Futaba yanked her goggles down for a second before flipping them up again. “Just the one, huh. No underlings or trash mobs, just the one Shadow. I’m getting some very familiar readings off of it, so odds are it’s the Crow version.” 

“This will be interesting to watch,” Akechi remarked from the side. “Can you tell where the people that used to be here have gone?” Sumire tried to say something to Futaba, but Ren pushed her arm down and shook his head.

“There’s faint signals from something, lots of somethings, within the main theater, but I can’t tell what. No signals in the entire rest of the Palace, so if we're going to go anywhere, might as well keep going straight.” 

Which was exactly what they did. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it wasn’t clear which, they once again didn’t encounter anything until they got to the main theater’s door. Ren reached out to open it, but stepped back and looked at Futaba. Futaba looked at Akechi, who took a deep breath and nodded, and Ren shoved the door open.

“What the hell?” “Oh my god!” “What the fuck is that?” “I think I am going to faint.” “I need to vomit, and I don’t know if it’s this or my head.” “My god!” “Haru, are you okay?” 

Haru had just straight up fainted at the sight within the theater, now rotting and breaking apart like the rest of the Palace. Every mental projection within the area where the Thieves had first entered had been herded into the main theater, and gruesomely forced into poses through the seats and the stage. Dancing, talking, acting out the play on stage, every projection pinned in place with chains, bolts, and all manner of restraints just to keep them in a way to make the dilapidated theater look like it was in the middle of a bustling opening night. 

“Are they alive?” “Oracle?” “I--I can’t tell. They’re giving off signals, but not as their individual selves. It’s like they’re wires in a computer, running electricity towards something but not actually having something to them.” 

Makoto stopped for a second and did a double take. “Wait, like actors in a play? No way your Shadow is that on the nose.” “This is the Crow one. You remember that clearly.” “But still, you weren’t full on insane like this.”

“Let’s just stay focused,” Ren said. “The Shadow’s not in here, or it would have probably attacked us by now. So let’s try and head backstage again and follow it from there.” Nods of agreement came from everybody else, and the Thieves began carefully moving through the sea of projections towards the now darkened stage. The spotlights that had lit it last time they were there had either fallen down or been smashed open, littering the stage with shards of glass and metal. Thankfully, none of them were sharp enough to pierce the uniforms of the Thieves, although Akechi did get a small cut that Ren immediately healed with a snap of the fingers when he tried to pick one up. The others just ignored them, and everybody was searching around the stage when Ann tripped and fell into one of the projections, locked into a noble pose and garb.

“Lady Ann!” Morgana started sprinting towards Ann, sliding under her in time to prevent her face from meeting one of the shards, but the projection wasn’t as lucky. The shoddy mental image of what appeared to be Tokyo’s police chief rapidly fell towards the floor, tearing free of the chains bolted into its back for a split second before more suddenly shot out from the darkness behind the stage, piercing it and holding it in place in a pose that looked as if it was leaping off, an almost poetic representation that was immediately shot down when it was violently dragged back into the previous position. 

“What the hell was that?” Haru spun around, launcher already out and aimed at the place where the chains had come from. More chains sprouted out of the floor to hold the projection in place as the ones that moved it retreated into the darkness, and Ren snapped his fingers again. A small ball of fire flew outward towards the origin point, revealing a flayed, feathered body with metal plates bolted on for a split second before it fizzled out. There was a brief moment of silence, but before any of the Thieves could even draw weapons Haru fired her launcher. It struck home, the blast sending whatever held the chains flying backwards through the rotting wall. As it did, every instance of chains binding the project suddenly vanished, although the bolts, boards, and ropes were still there. Haru loaded another round, a flare one this time, and fired it in the same arc. The light disappeared through the hole in the wall, and the sound of phosphorus was covered up by the sound of sizzling flesh for a split second before a chain swung out through the hole and threw the flare back onto the stage. Now illuminated, the Thieves could clearly see the hole a massive human-corvid hybrid emerged through it, a patch of the rotting skin on its chest blown away to reveal metal patches on top of bones. Akechi didn’t waste any time in diving off the stage, out of the line of fire, and the Thieves all unmasked and jumped out of the way as the Shadow lashed out with the chains. Haru fired one last shot before leaping out of close range, blasting away some of the feathers on the skull as she rolled back and dodged a chain flying her way. Ann and Ryuji both shot spells at a chain attempting to hit both of them at once, narrowly dodging it as heat and electricity arced towards the darkness behind the Shadow before rebounding and smacking it in the back, to little effect. Yusuke sent Gorokichi to grab the very same chain, attempting to freeze it solid and snap it in half, but as soon as he swung the sword the ice just shattered off without breaking the chain. The Shadow reared up and jerked its arm from side to side rapidly, sending the chain lashing into all three of them. The Shadow switched its attention to Morgana and swung the chain again, but he beat it to the punch, calling forth Diego and wrapping the chain around his sword before yanking the Shadow forwards, pulling it free of a bunch of black tendrils that had been set into its back in a blur of black blood and screeching. Sumire immediately followed up, chaining Masquerade spells together until the Shadow was gushing blood and showing more interior metal plating than flesh. Ren picked up the others, but Yusuke immediately pushed him out of the way and dashed straight for the Shadow, plunging his sword into a gap between two plates that he’d seen. The Shadow screeched and began thrashing, metal plates bursting off as it writhed and bulged as if transforming--and then it immediately fell down when Akechi got thrown halfway across the room and slammed into it. 

“Oh, that’s a bit more like it!” The voice of Akechi’s Shadow ran out, and the man himself  
dropped down from the rafters as another Shadow like the one the Thieves were already fighting emerged from behind the audience. “Now, Joker, you have some blood to pay me back for. What say we duel for it?” Shadow Akechi’s mask looked as if it had been repaired back together, and a scar was barely visible underneath the mask. The first hybrid Shadow had almost pulled itself back together from the pool of warping, bulging black blood, but the second one just stomped straight through it and started swinging chains at the other Thieves as Ren stared down the Shadow. 

“Just you and me, Joker. Let’s settle this like we should have ages ago.” “No you DON’T!” Akechi tackled his shadow, knocking the laser gun Ren hadn’t even seen out of its hand as he began wailing on this distorted self. “Ice the Shadows! I’d be glad to fight this one for now.” Ren just nodded and ran off towards the others, while Akechi took a knee in the stomach and rolled backwards off his Shadow. 

“Will you ever just stop? You know I’m right here!” “You’re only right if I’m still you. I’m not.” “BULLSHIT!” Akechi blocked a punch from his Shadow, but it followed up with another one immediately afterwards to the other side. Akechi recoiled, grabbing his stomach, but the second his Shadow swung again he grabbed its arm and twisted it, chopping the exposed inner arm before kneeing the elbow and sending a spurt of black blood out as what would have been a bone broke through the skin. A swift kick to the kneecap immobilized the Shadow, and Akechi grabbed the laser pistol from its holster and held it to the Shadow’s head. 

“I. Have. You.” “You ignorant fuckwit! Why do you always fight everything? You know I’m right here! You don’t need them! You can just keep going, keep up the act you’ve been doing for years, and you’ll be fine!” “No, you don’t seem to get it, you knockoff fool!” Akechi pressed the barrel of the pistol in deeper. “I don’t want to be that person anymore! I want to be my own self, not whatever act suits me best!” 

“And what if who you are doesn’t work for you?” “That doesn’t matter, because I’m still me!” 

Shadow Akechi scoffed. “Then you must be an absolute fool.” 

“Akechi, look out!”

Sumire’s yell came too late, as the hybrid Shadow came barreling over Akechi, knocking him back down to the ground and slamming into his Shadow. Shadow Crow stood up, healed from the almost absorption of the other shadow, and leaned over Akechi. 

“Still think that you can win as yourself?”

#### Part 7 - I Can Make It Bleed

The other Thieves ran to try and assist Akechi, but Shadow Crow grabbed the laser pistol from off the ground and aimed it at them. “I can hit whoever I’m aiming at, so don’t even try it.” 

Ryuji raised his shotgun, eyes wide with anger. “You think I can’t blow your arm off before you try that?” “No.” “No.” Akechi groaned. “I could do it, and if I can, he definitely can. Don’t take any risks right now.” Ryuji lowered the shotgun, but kept his eyes locked on the Shadow. 

“Well, this has been a fun little show that we’ve all put on, but I think it’s time to pack it in, don’t you?” Shadow Crow’s words dripped with venom, but his posture was relaxed. “So what say we all go back to the roles we were playing before, and agree this never happened? You go back to Thief things, and we go back to catching you like the Detective Prince we are.” He jammed the gun into Akechi’s head at the last sentence, like he was physically trying to drill in the point. “Nice little distraction you tried to pull off, but let’s face it, you’re not going to escape this. I mean, you set up your entire life to fit in these roles, you literally don’t have a choice in escaping it.” 

“You should know how easy it is to break those chains!” Makoto yelled. “You can’t hold somebody to any path, even one they carved for themselves! They’ll always break out, and the harder you hold them, the harder it’ll hurt when they do.” “Yeah, she said it all,” Ren said as he chuckled a bit. “People will break out of what binds them. It only takes one little beacon to incite that, and then worlds can change.” 

“And don’t forget what changed our world!” Morgana leaped onto Ryuji’s shoulder and crossed his arms. “Dude, I’m gonna be honest, I don’t like you. But if we can kill a god, I don’t think you got much of a shot.”

“People are like colors on paint. Alone, they can do much, but with others, they can do an immense amount.” Ann turned and stared at Yusuke. “That made too much sense.” 

Sumire stepped forward. “Akechi, we stand with you, and stand here for you--” She didn’t get to finish as a laser blasted her in the chest, sending her falling backwards. Ren caught her on the way down and grabbed an emergency med out of his coat, injecting the regeneration agent into her before she even lost momentum. The other Thieves drew their weapons, but Shadow Crow kept aiming at them. “For once, I find myself wishing she would stop talking. She should have just stuck to her role. This is what happens when you try and go against--”

“Shut. Up.” 

“Why?” Shadow Crow turned and looked down at Akechi. “I’m right, you know it. She should have stayed in her role, doing what she was supposed to do and sticking as Kasumi. She’d be safe and out of harm’s way, and still where she should be. As you should have!”

“You telling me I should have just stayed a murderer?!” “Well, yes. It would have kept everything nice and clean, and who would have been the wiser? You had the chance to get away cleanly after Shido’s Palace, and yet you didn’t. You fool.”

Akechi’s breathing slowed, but it was harsh and audible from as far away as the Thieves were. He stood up slowly, staring his Shadow in the eyes as his labored breath betrayed his cold exterior to the anger swelling within him--the same anger that was hidden so well as Crow. 

“I’m not going to play by your damn rules anymore. I’m not going back to who I was!” “Well too bad, because it’s the only one of you that would work! Face it, you can’t survive without that mask! Look at how much you fell apart the second you didn’t have anything to fall back on any more! You need this!” 

“No I DON’T!” Akechi screamed it with a passion like he was having a psychotic fit, and suddenly reeled back as if struck in the face. Shadow Crow took a step back, now swiveling the pistol between Ren, a Sumire who’d been healed via a quick Salvation spell, and Akechi, ignoring the other Thieves holding weapons. Morgana jumped down from Ryuji’s shoulder and hid behind his leg as Futaba pushed forwards through the group, visor down and deployed. “Holy shit! I’m getting a power reading from him! It’s small, sort of like it’s level locked, but it looks absolutely massive!” “Is that-?” “Yeah.” Futaba gave a thumbs-up to Ren. “This is it.”

Akechi snapped back to a standing position, face covered in a purple mask not unlike his Crow one, but with a much shorter beak and with small spike protruding from the sides not unlike his Black Mask one. He stood for a second, panting, before straightening up and looking Shadow Crow dead in the eyes with a snarl on his face. “I...am not you. I am not Crow, the imitation Phantom Thief!” His right hand shot up and yanked at the side of his mask, cutting his hand open from the spikes but only partially removing it. “I am not the Detective Prince. I am not some black-masked assassin!” Left hand went up, yanked, and partially removed it, blood from the hand mingling from blood from the head mingling on the floor.

“My name is Goro Akechi...and I. Am! Raven!” 

Akechi reached up with both hands and tore the mask off, freshly spurting blood blown away as a column of blue fire engulfed him. Shadow Crow jumped back, the gun blown far away by the fire and landing somewhere far off in the theater. As the fire engulfed Akechi, strands began shooting out towards the projections, wrapping around their chains and bindings and disintegrating them, leaving the projections to run out of the theater. The room was empty save for Thieves, Akechi, and Shadow Crow in mere seconds as the fire subsided, revealing Akechi in new garb standing in a noble-looking combat pose, fingers curled and body almost radiating with anger given new, laser-like focus directed at the Shadow in front of him. His outfit had changed to one almost like his Crow outfit, but with the white now black and the red now dark blue. The gold accents were a shiny purple medal,and his cape was dark blue as well, but ragged near the bottom. He turned and looked at Ren while still facing Shadow Crow, but his words were clearly not meant for the object of his fury.

“There can still be honor in fighting. I can still give a purpose to my bloodshed. And now...now that I am not alone, that I have people to fight for. Now that I have myself to fight for! That purpose will be fulfilled. I will rewrite the future I made for myself. Regardless of how many of me I need to kill.”

More blue flame begin to coalesce behind him, suddenly bursting away to reveal something new. Behind Akechi stood a tall, shadowy man in a trench coat, with a trilby tilted back, revealing a dark face covered in moving shadows. His coat was open and flung to the side, revealing a mass of clockwork gears and dark, shadowy substance. On his right arm was an apparatus from which a large blade could be seen partially hidden, similar to an assassin’s armblade but larger and on the forearm. On the left arm was a crossbow-like mechanism, with sabot rounds strapped all along the arm and one already nocked on the crossbow. Mounted on his back were two mechanical wings emerging from another clockwork apparatus, pointed downwards like a diving bird’s as if parodying Raoul. Akechi turned back towards Shadow Crow, and let out a long, ragged exhale charged with rage.  
“Destroy him...Moran!” 

Shadow Crow began glancing around in a panic, and began sprinting back towards the backstage. Moran just raised one arm and threw out a fireball, illuminating the pitch-black backstage for just long enough to catch a glimpse of Shadow Crow before firing a Sabot, the whistling of metal moving through the air immediately followed by smashing wood, a wet squelch, and a scream of pain. The lights suddenly switched on through the entire theater, revealing Shadow Crow pinned to the stage with a sabot clean through his calf. Black blood seeped out from the wound, and he turned his neck to stare at Akechi as he approached. 

“So, this is how it is. You’re going to fight for it.” 

Akechi kicked him right next to the sabot’s wound before he responded. “I’ll right you, and all the other Shadows I have to so I can make my future.” 

Shadow Crow chuckled. “Heh. So be it. The Treasure will be very clear through backstage when you see it. Are you going to send me out with a one-liner?”

Akechi stood for a moment, before making a gesture like he was drawing a line across himself and swinging his arm out to the side, the last wisps of blue flame forming into a purple-tinged version of his black mask blade, but more of a short sword than a full blade. Akechi balanced it on his finger for a second, before plunging it into Shadow Crow’s neck and removing it as Moran faded from behind him. 

“You don’t deserve it.” And with that, he began walking further backstage, the walls warping out of his way as he moved. The Thieves followed close behind, with none there to witness Shadow Crow’s last moment, but Futaba called it out as they walked off. 

“What the hell is going on here?” Ryuji muttered. 

“The Palace is acknowledging how I’ve overcome it all, and basically bending to my will at this point. We’re going to recover the Treasure, and get out.” 

“Wait, wait!” Futaba spoke up. “There’s still one more Shadow, though! Don’t we want to go after it?” 

Akechi turned to face her, but kept walking backwards. “Queen just took a hit, and that fight took a lot out of us. We’ve been returning here regularly for the last two days, and Ren still has another few days. I think we can afford a down day after this.” He spun back around, just in time to come to a wall that didn’t move. The rotting remains of a door stood in front of them all, labeled as “Cast Props” on what was left of it. Akechi pushed the door open, revealing what looked like a floating, golden version of Joker’s Mask in the center of the rotting room. “Already materialized, it seems. No need for a calling card when you ask the Thieves to do it yourself.” Akechi took it in his hand and spun. “Does anybody else want some coffee? It’s still 5 AM.”

#### Part 8 - Social Cues

“Dude, is that your third plate? Save some for the rest of us man.” 

“Sakamoto, everybody else nearly passed out after they awakened their Personas. I think this is a much better outcome.” 

“Since you’re paying for it, it works for me,” Sojiro said from the kitchen. “Just don’t eat too much, I do need ingredients for the rest of the day.” Akechi chuckled and went back to his third plate of curry, as Ryuji just stared dumbfounded at him. Ren was out of the cafe for a while, so it was just the two of them until the other Thieves showed up. 

Ryuji shook himself out of his shocked stare and leaned in a bit. “Hey, uh, Akechi, can I ask you somethin’?” 

“Ask away.” 

“What your Shadow said…” He glanced around, making sure the cafe was empty except for Sojiro. “About the whole, setting up your life so you’d stick to your roles...did you actually do that? Like were you actually planning all this shit out before you met us?” 

Akechi sighed and leaned back a bit, eating one more forkful of curry before looking off towards the Sayuri. “Some of it, yes. The career with the police, getting close to Shido, you saw all that firsthand and heard my explanation of it. But during that time, I had never realized that I...wasn’t doing it for myself. I’d lost my purpose, and let my plans become controlled by somebody else.”

“Shido.” 

“Well, yes.” Akechi chuckled and scooped a few more bites of curry into his mouth. “I think in the end, I got lost in what I was trying to do.” 

“Are you sure it wasn’t just your psychopath?”

“Psychosis, and maybe. I could have just been getting tripped up by my fits and blinded by that. It’s almost ironic, isn’t it?” He dropped his fork onto the plate. “All this power in my hand, enhanced by the same anger that I can’t control.” 

“But I mean, you can now, right?” Ryuji smiled a bit as he spoke, leaning back into his usual pose with legs crossed and arms out. 

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got your medicine, and this time around you’ve got--wait, they’re not here. Whatever, you know what I mean, right? We’ve got your back this time, man.” 

“I’m grateful, if not confused.” 

“Dude, don’t make me try and be smart to figure out what you mean.” 

“How can you just agree to help me so quickly? You could have just tossed me back out the door and forgotten I’d ever come back in here, and I don’t think any of you would have lost sleep. I tried to kill you in Shido’s Palace, and actually shot Ren in the face!” 

“Eh, he doesn’t hold harsh feelings over it.” Ryuji lifted his cup of coffee to his mouth and took a long sip. “Hell, he actually liked your, uhhh, rivalry? Is that it?”

“Yes.” “Hell yeah!” “You said he liked it?”

“Uhh, yeah, yeah.” The coffee cup went back on the table with a clink. “He didn’t mention it that much, the only time he actually did was this one time over the summer where Futaba slipped some beer into his coffee and he lost it.” 

“Ren’s a lightweight? Really? I would’ve thought it would take him an entire fifth of vodka to get affected somehow.” Both of them glanced at Sojiro in sync, and he met them with a startled stare back. “Hey, don’t look at me. If he ever drank anything, it wasn’t under my control.” Akechi snorted, and Ryuji turned back to face him only to see him carrying his several empty plates over to the dishwasher himself. Sojiro made a move to intercept him, but he dodged easily. 

“You don’t have to do this, I can handle it.” “No, it’s okay. It’s practice.” “Oh, don’t tell me you might end up working here.” “I don’t have much else planned for the summer, and it couldn’t hurt. Besides, seeing as your customer flow has slowly increased, I don’t think it’d be fair for you to handle it all by yourself.” “Dude, you know there’s nobody else here, right?” 

Akechi rolled his eyes at Ryuji. “It’s eight in the morning, Sakamoto. If anybody was willing to come here at this time of day, they’d fall over themselves from exhaustion and keep crawling.” 

The door jingled open, and Ren hit Akechi with the snap to finger gun combo. “I got that joke.” “Oh, so your taste really is as bad as I thought it was. Only took over a year to prove it.” “You’re definitely back to normal,” Ren said as he slid behind the counter and started making himself some coffee. 

“Well, it’s safe to say I’m in a much better mood now that most of the...issues have been solved. Sakamoto actually brought up a good point, about me facing my past and what I did.” 

Ren raised an eyebrow at Ryuji as Akechi leaned against the wall by the Sayuri. “Was he confused on how everybody forgave him?” 

“Yeah, he was!” Ryuji almost laughed as he said it. “I was gonna tell him about my thing with the track team when you walked in.” 

“I already know the details,” Akechi said as Ren handed him another cup of coffee. “You punched your teacher in anger because he provoked you, the track team got shut down because of it, and it took Ren to help everybody stop hating you. I tried to mock you with that, remember?” 

“Nooot really what I was tryna say there, man.” Ryuji stood up, placing his own empty cup on the counter. “The point is, after it happened, it was in the past. The team forgave me after a while, but I had to go and talk to them about it first. You gotta go and face your past, head on, but it’s only the past. No matter what happened, you’re over it. You’re past your past.” 

Ren and Akechi just stared at Ryuji in dumbstruck silence for a second before turning to each other. “Did he just say something smart?” “What did you tell him while I was gone?” “Nothing, I was just talking to him!” “Do I need to set up a supervision network on you?” “I’m as surprised as you are! I should be asking what you did!”  
The bickering was cut short by Yusuke’s entrance into the shop. “Apologies, Ren, I was distracted by an abnormally white pigeon--is everything alright?” 

“Apparently when I’m smart those two get confused.” “Yeah, that about covers it.” 

“Well then” Yusuke said. “I simply came by to ask if anybody would like to go into Shibuya today. I thought it would be nice for all of us to just spend a little time relaxing, especially after the last few days being so intense.” “Oh, you guys wanna head by the mall? We might be able to bump in to the others there.” 

Akechi shrugged, and twenty minutes later, him and Ren were standing side by side in the mall as Futaba, Yusuke, Ryuji, and Ann were arguing with each other over what gifts were cost appropriate. 

“Were they always like this, or did this all happen once they started dating?” “I’m almost as shocked as you, Akechi.” The two of them took a synchronised sip of coffee from thermoses Ren had brought from LeBlanc, since it was still winter and fairly cold, and Akechi sighed a bit. 

“Does this feel...off, to you? Like when Maruki had rewritten things. This feels like it shouldn’t be working out for me.”

Ren chuckled. “Don’t tell me you have another power you hid from us.”

“No, no.” Akechi’s smile was clear behind the thermos as he took another sip. “I am grateful for your help, but like I asked Ryuji, I’m confused by your kindness. Can you truly so easily put the past behind you and help me, of all people?” 

“You did this morning.” 

“Hm.” The silence between the two for that split second almost drowned out the others yelling. “You’re right. That does make sense. If I could do it that simply, I guess it would be even simpler for people who aren’t--”

“Suffering from psychosis?” Sumire rounded the corner, finishing Akechi’s sentence for him. 

“I was going to say fighting the personification of your past self, but I suppose that could count too.” Ren stifled a laugh as Akechi glanced at him and looked around. “Was something I said funny to you, Jok-Ren?” “Did you almost call me Joker?” “Force of habit, the times I got that mad at you were all in the Metaverse and I haven’t spoken to you in, well, almost a year.” “That was definitely funny.” “I don’t know if I’ve missed this or not.” 

Ren didn’t stifle the laugh this time, but he did take another look around. “If Makoto doesn’t show up soon, I think I’m going to leave you all alone. They’re not arguing anymore, so it couldn’t hurt to go join them, and I think her phone ran out of battery again.” 

“I wonder what’s up with her today,” Sumire said. She was examining a necklace on display in front of the jewelry store, twirling a small flower charm between her fingers as she stared. “You should probably go check in on her, then. Best case scenario, she’s still at home. Worst, she somehow got lost.” “Wouldn’t be unusual for her. I’ll try and be back quick.” Ren headed off towards the stairs, and Makoto shot Akechi a smiling glance before holding the necklace up to her neck. “Do you think this looks good on me?” She asked. 

Akechi’s eyes widened, and he glanced around. “Are you asking me for fashion advice?”

“Well, Ann’s busy trying to keep Ryuji from kissing her in public, and Futaba knows less than you, so yes. Do you think this necklace looks good on me?” 

Akechi moved behind her, trying to crane his neck over her head to look in the mirror, but almost fell over out of surprise when she spun around and looked at him, already wearing the necklace. She looked him right in the eyes, almost like how she did back in Takemi’s office, and smiled. “Well?” 

Akechi shook his head a miniscule amount and looked down at the necklace. “I do think it looks quite nice on you, yes.” 

Sumire chuckled and spun back around, placing the necklace back on this display stand. “I think it does too. Doesn’t quite fit with the charm, though.” 

“Attempting to assert your identity in a way relating to your favorite hobby?” “I did actually get this out of the Metaverse, digging through the remnants of Maruki’s palace. I wonder if anybody else will find anything interesting.” 

“A good question. Maybe we could go investigating some time.” 

“I’d actually enjoy doing that with you, Akechi.” 

“I’m not going to read into that sentence.” 

Sumire laughed, and after a moment Akechi laughed too. 

“Do you hear Ryuji yelling about Makoto?” 

“What on earth is Niijima up to now?”

“You’re far more fun than I anticipated.” “I got the same feeling off of you when we first met.”

#### Part 9 - Visiting Of The Ghost

“Why did it change? It was such a font of inspiration yesterday.” “Inari, shush, I’m tracking.” 

The Palace had shifted again, the strange space-bending warping of the previous day restored to standard geometry. The rot and rust had faded, as if the Palace was repairing itself, but it clearly didn’t look the same. The walls appeared almost stitched together, as if somebody had done their best repair job despite not knowing anything about repairing. The destruction leading to the closet from the stage was unchanged, but a new corridor was past the prop closet. 

“Oracle, anything?” Ren asked. The Thieves were scattered around what was left of the closet, all in full Metaverse attire. Akechi was pacing the length of the closet, twirling the blade of his sword around his hand as Futaba focused on her headset. 

“There only seems to be one signal, and it’s a strong one. Definitely the Shadow we’re looking for. I can’t get a bead on him, though. There’s a static in my way, like somebody throws up the ping every time he gets in my crosshairs. If I didn’t think it impossible since there’s no high tech stuff here, I’d say he’s shielding himself.” 

Akechi stopped and whipped around, staring down the corridor. “That’s exactly what he’s doing.” 

“What?” 

“No, Akechi’s right,” Makoto said. “We’ve taken out all three of the roles he used to play. The only one that could possibly be left, his only demon tormenting him, is the combination of all three. The true Shadow Akechi.” 

“Which means he would have full control over the Palace!” Futaba yelled.

“Wait, do you mean this is the real him?” Haru asked. “Like in my father’s Palace?” 

Akechi turned and looked Haru in the eyes. “Yes. This is the full Shadow me. If you were waiting for me to feel regret for everything I did, now is your chance. Although I make no promises.” 

Haru sighed. “I already told you, Akechi. But right now, I think the best way—for all of us—is to end this here and now, and finally put the past to rest.” “Did Sakamoto come up with that?” “Yes, actually.” “I’m shocked.” “Hey! Wait, did you guys hear that?”

A low rumble echoed through the Palace, accompanied by the floorboards suddenly surging with energy moving down the new corridor. A distant scream echoed out, one that sounded very similar to Akechi’s.

“I think it’s pretty clear what that was.” “Indeed, Queen. Time to go?” “Yeah. Time to roll.”

The end of the corridor was about as barren as the rest of it, simply being a flimsy wooden door with a gold star painted on it. Ren pushed the door open up at the front, but the only thing within the small room was a makeup table in front of a mirror, with shattered police badges, Crow masks, and Black Masks all over it. 

“Oracle?” “He should be here, I don’t--” Futaba was startled by the sound of the door slamming behind them. The Thieves whipped around, only to find Akechi as he appeared when he shot Detective Prince Shadow standing in front of it, with one change. 

“The eyes...is that--” “Yes.” Akechi stepped forwards, looked his Shadow in the eyes, and started speaking.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” 

“Neither of us is going to back down without a fight.” 

“I am not going to hold myself to any roles or archetypes anymore. I am going to be my own person, and you are not going to bind me.” 

“Are you certain that you are free, though? There are other people here, and they may not be as easy to let the past go as you have been.” 

“You’d be surprised at how kind people can be when you try to change.”

“Oh, don’t be a fool. These morons don’t care for you! They’re not going this out of the kindness of their own hearts!”

“Why else would they be doing it?”

The Shadow stopped, almost frozen in place from the shock of that question. Akechi just kept talking.

“After everything I did, why else would they forgive me if it wasn’t genuine? What other reason, logical or illogical, would they have for actually going in and helping me? Their job?” Akechi chuckled. “Changing my heart wouldn’t have changed shit in the world, and with how much I screwed them over, I deserve it. But, here we are. What I deserved, what you wanted, it’s not happening now. Our little plan is shot. But if that’s what it takes to make my own fate, as myself, I accept that.” 

Shadow Akechi stared at him for a moment, and then started thrashing. “Are you serious?!? You really just abandoned everything? You bought that they actually forgave you? You killed Okumura! You killed Ren! You tried to get all of them caught, and you think they’re going to let you just walk away?”

“Yes, you imbecilic rat-brained fool! How is it this hard to grasp? You’re literally me!” 

Shadow Akechi let out a scream of rage and charged at Akechi, but he just dashed to the side and slashed the Shadow as it ran by. Black blood started trickling out of the now gaping cut in its back, and it chuckled as the walls began to fall away. 

“Guys?” Ren said. “Get ready for a fight.” 

Shadow Akechi let out one more scream, and a sudden cloud of shadow engulfed the now massive arena. It faded, revealing the twisted form of Shadow Akechi: the human-ish form still rested at the base, but as it went up, the back twisted and bloated into an almost hydra-like shape; sprouting up and to one side was a twisted, distorted Robin Hood, bow melded with hand, and to the other side was a twisted Loki with the sword merged with the opposite hand. The Thieves all unmasked, Personas assembled side by side, with Akechi and Moran standing in front. 

“YOU FUCKING FOOL! I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS!” “Well, you became uncreative. Thieves, if I may ask for your help again?” 

If anybody had been there to watch, it would have looked like a well oiled machine got started up again. Makoto kicked the whole ordeal off by driving out and to the side, casting Checkmate on the Shadow as she drew her revolver and began firing. Ann lashed her whip around Loki’s sword arm and used Celestine to boost herself up, sending a Blazing Hell up the chain as she used her own momentum to tear the chain free and cut at the Shadow. Robin Hood raised it’s arm to shoot at the closing in fireball, only for a psychically charged shell to impact it and throw its aim off. It turned and took better aim at Haru, who was firing from behind Yusuke and Gorokichi, deflecting every arrow, blessed or not. Ann pushed off a piece of floating wood and spun around Loki’s arm again, swinging around to deliver a kick to its face in sync with a flurry of blows from Morgana and Diego. Loki’s other hand reached up and hit her as it flailed, but Futaba swooped in and grabbed Ann neatly on Al Azif. The entire time, Ren and Ryuji had been pelting it with Ziodyne combos, and Akechi and Sumire had been dealing with the massive volume of high-power curse spells the Shadow Akechi base had been spewing. 

Things began going wrong when Yusuke slipped up. A Kouagon slipped it’s way past him, smashing into Lucy and knocking Haru flat from the impact alone. Yusuke looked back at her, just long enough for a Megaton blast to send him flying. Makoto turned on a dime and started speeding over, barely managing to get a Diarahan on both of them before countering an inbound barrage of arrows with several Freidynes. Sumire turned and looked in a moment of panic, just long enough for an Eiagon to hit Ella. She fell to the floor, letting out a cry that drew everybody’s gaze away from the Shadow. There was a split second of stillness, shattered by a cry of rage from Akechi. 

“NO MORE!” Akechi drew his sword and unmasked, charging at the Shadow. Shadow Akechi cackled and blasted a Megido at him, only for Akechi to straight up dodge it and unmask, leaping upwards. Moran swung its armblade towards the Loki shadow, drawing a massive line of black blood along the length of the sword before Akechi himself slashed its chest with his sword, landing with Moran still out. Loki reared back, about to send a shockwave through the sword, only for both wounds to suddenly come alight with purplish fire. Loki recoiled, and Robin Hood took aim with a supercharged arrow as Shadow Akechi raised both its hand and began casting a charged up Megido. Akechi glared at him with an almost burning intensity, and dashed forwards, with Moran firing a sabot literally burning with Curse energy towards Robin Hood as he ran. Shadow Akechi pulled its hands back, attempting to beat the real Akechi to the punch, but the Sabot punched straight through Robin Hood’s chest as Akechi ran his sword straight through both his Shadow’s crossed arms and it’s chest, piercing out it’s back coated in blood and purple flame. The spells fizzled out, and the Shadow coughed up blood as it stared at Akechi’s enraged face. 

“I. Told. You.” 

The Shadow pulsed, and the distorted Personas vanished from behind it as it fell to the floor. Akechi raised his sword as Moran vanished and stabbed it down hard, reducing his Shadow to nothing more than a fading pool of black and red blood. 

“Well, you ended that fight early,” Ren said as he walked up behind him. “I don’t think I got to do anything fun that time.” 

“You’re hilarious. Is Yoshizawa okay?”

“She’s fine. Queen’s healing her now. Oracle, any idea on when we’re going to have to get out of here?”

“Something weird about that,” Futaba said from half inside the floor. “The Palace doesn’t seem to be collapsing on us. It might be because of Akechi’s Persona, but I don’t think it will be going away soon.” 

“Well,” Haru said as she picked herself up off the ground, “I think we know what we do with problems that don’t solve themselves.” 

Akechi pointed at Haru. “Was she always this ruthless?” “You don’t know how much you missed.” “Regardless, I think you know what I mean, Akechi-san.” 

Akechi glanced over at Sumire, now standing upright and healed, and then looked up. 

“Yes, I do.”

He turned to Ren. 

“Do you have a Molotov?”

#### Part 10 - Fire/Fine

“Oh, this is fun as hell!” 

Akechi threw another firebomb at a support pillar as Morgana scampered past him, Ann and Ryuji right behind in their fleeing the very on fire Palace. Haru, Makoto, Futaba, and Yusuke were already long gone, but Ren was staying behind to help burn things even faster. Neither of them had noticed that Sumire was still in there. 

“You know,” Ren yelled, “Even if this doesn’t actually burn down the Palace, the symbolic value of this might be enough to just entirely get rid of it.” 

“Ren, you’re incredibly intelligent and cunning, but please just SHUT UP AND LET ME ENJOY THIS!” Akechi’s smile almost passed the sides of his mask as he ended that sentence with a very loud laugh, and Ren smiled too. “Well, if you insist.” He tossed Akechi another firebomb, and he immediately threw it, detoning it in midair with a shot from Moran. 

“I don’t think I’ve had an experience this cathartic in ages! When do you think is too close for comfort?”

Ren fired off one more Blazing Hell and remasked, turning to Akechi. “Now, I think. We need to be alive to savor the moment.” 

“You raise a very good point.” Akechi straightened himself out and took a breath, his smile still wide as he took a long look around at the flames. “God, this--this feels good. Oh, this is so, so satisfying and so, so deserved.” He let out a satisfied sigh and spread his arms, gesturing to what he thought was nobody. “And this is some beautiful work. I’ve burnt some things before, but this feels so much better, so much different.” 

“Is it odd I find this beautiful?” 

Akechi spun around to see Sumire looking around in awe, ignoring how Ren was just strolling straight out of the Palace. “Yoshizawa?” 

Sumire let out a small smile. “Is it?”

Akechi’s smile somehow got even wider. “No, no it’s not.” He turned back and began striding out, spinning around to admire the fires around him. “When it’s a matter like this, even a stickler like Morgana has to admit that it’s a beautiful sight.” 

“Is this meant to be you claiming your future?” 

Akechi didn’t respond until he was about to fall backwards through the portal, with Sumire right in front of him, almost close enough to peel his mask off. 

“I’m throwing away my past. Like you did, back then.” He stepped to the side and gestured, allowing Sumire to hop through as he took one last satisfied look at what was his Palace.

“No more stages, no more lies. Heh. I almost sound like Ren.”

Akechi leaned back, allowing himself to fall through the portal as the Palace collapse behind him. 

“Almost. If I wasn’t me.” 

The last thing any human saw of Goro Akechi’s Palace, the Theater of Lies, was a blazing inferno collapsing in on itself. To anybody that would have cared about it, it would have been almost poetic. 

Akechi landed on the opposite side of the portal back in Shibuya, doing a roll as he stood himself back up. The other Thieves were standing around, all staring at Ren’s phone in anticipation of the line everybody was expecting the Nav to say. 

“Destination deleted.” 

“So, it’s settled.” “I think that’s the quickest we’ve run through a Palace ever.” “It was mine, so that may have made it a bit easier.” “Wait, did we ever see what the Treasure actually looked like?” 

Everybody’s eyes snapped over to Ren, who began digging in his coat pocket. The mask obviously wasn’t a giant golden mask anymore, but it had changed into something vastly different--a small silver charm, shaped like the silhouette of a bird. 

“Do you think it would be too on the nose to assume that’s meant to be a raven?” Akechi chuckled. Ren smirked and tossed him the charm, and Akechi caught it without any effort at all. 

“So, with that, I assume you all are going to leave me to head my own way?” “Nah man, it’s time to celebrate!” Ryuji threw his arm around Akechi’s neck, much to the shock of the latter. 

“It’s true. We usually celebrate after finishing a Palace, and I think we sort of owe it to you. After all, you did risk your life for us a few times in there, with your whole going in without any powers trick.” Makoto smiled a little, quietly laughing to herself. 

“I must agree with Niijima-san here,” Yusuke added as Ryuji began almost dragging Akechi along with the now moving Thieves. “The heat of battle forges many a bond, and it is only fair that we celebrate a clearly momentous occasion for you.” 

“Besides,” Ann said, “After everything that you said in there, just ditching you would be mean! You were shockingly fun back when you were with us.” 

Akechi’s panicked eyes jumped around before landing on a quietly smiling Sumire, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. “Whatever we do, as long as Ren’s buying. You have no idea how much he’s been hoarding from all these fights.” “Oh, we know.” 

Several hours later, Akechi was slumped against a bench in one of Shibuya’s many plazas, with Ren leaning against a building’s wall nearby. Ryuji was passed out on the bench next to Akechi, and Yusuke and Makoto had to work together to drag Haru back home. Futaba had been back at LeBlanc for a while, and Sumire had somehow managed to stay mostly sane through the entire romp through Tokyo. 

“Do you know how to accurately describe what just happened?” Akechi groaned to Ren. 

“I have no idea,” Ren replied as he tried to pull out his phone. “I’m going to call Ryuji’s mother, see if she can pick him up.”

“Good idea. I don’t know if I feel right to drive. Did you put something in my drink?” 

“Which one?”

“Fair, fair. I still can’t tell if any of those were actual alcohol or if I was just giddy from the proximity.” “Did you take your medication?” “Shit. That might have been it.” Akechi tried to stand up and fumbled with his pill bottle, barely managing to get it out of his pocket without dropping it. “Oh, yes, that is it. I think I forgot to consider the side effects of this. Although I don’t think paralysis was one of them Ren please help me--” 

Ren sprinted over and caught Akechi before he hit the ground, hoisting his arm over his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re fine?” “Give me a few minutes and I will be able to walk home.” “Suit yourself.” 

Akechi peeled himself off Ren and began slowly shuffling towards his apartment, doing his best to correct his gait. Before he turned the corner, he stopped and looked back at Ren. 

“If I may ask for a quick request..”

“Go ahead.”

“If you all are going to meet up tomorrow, would it be okay for me to come along? Tonight was...well, it was fun.” 

Ren smiled. “Of course. I don’t think anybody will object. Too much.” 

Akechi laughed and waved as he continued around the corner. He was standing in front of the door to his apartment when his phone started ringing, which he answered as fast as his clumsy hands could allow. 

“Goro Akechi speaking.” 

“Akechi? This is Sumire. I was wondering...we’re going to try and meet up again tomorrow, try and get some more time in with Ren before he leaves in a few days. If you’re not busy then, do you think you could try and come along?” 

“I was just talking with Ren about that. I’ll be there.” 

“Oh, great! Well, I, uh, I can’t wait to see you.” 

“The feeling is mutual, Yoshizawa.” Akechi hung up and half-stumbled half-walked into his apartment, a smile on his face. 

The next morning, the Thieves were all sitting around the same table at the Tokyo boardwalk by nine in the morning. 

“So, is he gonna show, or what?” Ryuji was lying on a bench again, covering his eyes with his hand. 

“He said that he would, but I don’t know where he is now.” Sumire was slowly sipping from a bottle of water, looking out at the partially frozen beachfront. 

“Honestly, I hope he does show. He was fun last night, and as strange as this may sound, I...honestly do want him to join us.” “Yeah, same here. I didn’t think I would actually end up liking him after all he did, but after the Palace, and everything he went through, I think he needs some friends.” 

“That’s reductive, Ann.” Ren turned away from his book to speak to Ann and Makoto for a second before turning back, his eyes occasionally glancing up to look for Akechi. Yusuke was busy attempting to draw a frozen lobster with Haru looking over his shoulder, and Morgana had chosen to stay home for the day, so nobody was really paying attention when Futaba let out a shriek and pointed at the opposite end of the boardwalk. “There he is!”

“And I thought you wouldn’t actually come,” Ren chuckled as he put away his book. 

“Well, since there was demand for me to come, and you all didn’t murder me last night, I fugured I may as well show up.” Akechi smiled, looking at everybody at the table. “So, did I miss anything interesting while I wasn’t here?” 

“No, not really.” Haru sat down on the table, looking at Akechi with a look of having met a new friend. “Apart from us agreeing that the code name you pulled from nowhere was good.” 

“No, please, don’t let me just run things like that. We know what happened last time I tried to take charge.” 

Everybody laughed, including Akechi. Haru stood up and jokingly punched him in the arm, getting a raised eyebrow in response before she sat down still smiling. 

“Welcome back to the Phantom Thieves, Raven.”

A new reunion started on the boardwalk that day. And not even Sojiro’s calls to leave much later that night were enough to rid the Thieves of their newest returning recruit.

#### EPILOGUE - Feather And Petal

“So, what did you want to talk about?” 

It had been a few days since Ren had left Tokyo, and Sumire had called Akechi asking to talk. The two were sitting on a bench in front of Sumire’s house, in the shadow of the growing sunset, next to each other. 

“I wanted to talk about what your Shadow said in the Palace.” “Yoshizawa, are we still on that--”

Sumire shushed Akechi with a finger to the face. “It was about what it said, with the ideas of us abandoning you. You don’t actually think that, do you?” 

Akechi scoffed. “You should be aware that Shadows are, by their nature, distorted and incomplete projections of people, usually taking their fears and stretching them to the limit.” 

“But that fear has to exist in the first place.” 

“Everybody’s scared of their friends leaving them. Especially when they’ve just found real ones.”

“You know you can talk to us now, right? You don’t need to hide things.”

“I’m not hiding anything, Yoshizawa. And if you’re going to sit here and patronize me by saying that I’m some sort of tortured soul trying to hide my problems--” 

“Akechi, look at me!” 

Sumire’s hand had moved from Akechi’s face to his arm, and she was holding it harder than either of them expected. 

“Please. I know that these things don’t just go away with the Palaces, especially ones that are barely even tied to why it existed in the first place. Akechi, please, just be honest with me. Are you scared?” 

Akechi looked at the ground, then into Sumire’s eyes. 

“Are you still going to be here after I answer?”

“Akechi, I want to be here for you.”

Akechi sighed, one of resignation and admittance of defeat. 

“Yes. I mean, after everything you’ve seen of me, and what I’ve done, I’m still surprised you all even agreed to help me, much less welcomed me back with open arms.” 

“What kind of people would we be if we didn’t?”

“Normal ones! Anybody under the sun with a brain cell or more would have taken a good look at me and either just rejected me or set up some long-form plan to get me in a trap and get payback for what I’ve done! Just defying any sense of reason or anything, you just welcome me back and I’m not suspicious of it at all! WHY?!”

Akechi was trembling every so slightly as he spoke, but it wasn’t with anger. It was with sadness. “I just...don’t understand. And I’m scared that this isn’t going to work out, that it’s going to go wrong and I’ll be left out in the cold again, on my own like I’ve been for my entire life.” 

“Is there anything I can say that can change that?”

“I don’t know! I just...for what feels like the first time in my chaos filled life, I have something stable to hold on to, something positive, and I don’t know if it’s going to bite me in the ass or not.” 

“Akechi…”

Sumire pulled him in for a hug, quietly crying as she did. 

“I’m so, so sorry. I just...when your shadow said that, I got the feeling something was wrong, and I just wanted to make sure that it was okay. Just...please, just please believe me when I say that there’s nothing lurking behind the scenes. We’re here for you because we’re here for you. You’ve seen enough hatred in your lifetime.” 

“There’s no limit to how much you can hate a person. I learned that with Ren.” Akechi sniffled and pulled away from the hug. “Besides, why do you care so much? It’s not like you actually--oh. That’s why you said hatred.” 

“Why do you think?”

“Because…” 

He didn’t finish before Sumire pulled him into another hug, one he reciprocated this time. 

“I can’t stand to see you like this, Goro. I care about you too much. I--” “I know. Don’t say it.” “Goro, please, just let me say this to you!” “Can I say something first?” 

Sumire stayed silent. 

“Out of everybody, I think I was scared of losing you the most. I hadn’t felt this scared since Ren had to fight you, and now...now I know why.” 

Akechi leaned back as Sumire pulled herself out of the hug, a look of pure happiness working its way past the sorrow and sadness. 

“Sumire Yoshizawa, I love you, and while I don’t know what my future is, I know that I want to find it with you. I don’t want to lose you, I don’t--” Akechi pulled her in for another hug, squeezing her tightly as he gently cried. 

“Please, please, just let me hold on to you.” 

Sumire pulled out of the hug and held his face in her hands, two pairs of tear-drenched red eyes meeting each other. 

“Goro, I’ll never let you go.”


End file.
